Here is one for the linguists - why High-am, not Hig-ham?

It's because of the way the sounds are broken up. Higham is correctly broken h-i-gh-a-m. The "gh" is just one sound because it begins with "g" and is followed by the "h" which is commonly understood to be silent. Whereas Birmingham has a whole different sound - the syllables are bir-ming-ham, the sounds are b-i-r-m-i-n-g-h-a-m because the g belongs to the "ing" group. Whichever one comes first is the one it tags along with, with a few exceptions of course.

Because it doesn't sound right, lol. I had a friend used to work at Flitwick Manor pronounced Flittik. We live near Ulceby Cross pronuonced Ulce-abbey, although our friends from south used to say Ukklesbie. Saltfleetby is also pronounced SaltfleetBee and Soloughbee, Louth is Lowarth which is annoying as you don't eat with your mowarth (mouth). Alford is Olfud but often Al-fud, Maltby-Le-Marsh is Maltbee-la-mars and so we go on and that's just in my bit of Lincolnshire, Linkashear, lol.

I would pronounce it Higum leaving out the ha. Like I say Brigham . Brigum we keep the h silent. thats america for ya

Oh dear what a pretty name for a village and the way that the people pronounce the name is very interesting maybe they do pronounce it this way after Birmingham, and maybe it is due to when my mother visited her relative in the U.K. she told me that they do have a lot of smaller home in some of the villages so maybe this is the other reason.