Early British trackways, moats, mounds, camps, and sitesWatkins, Alfred
History
Early British trackways, moats, mounds, camps, and sites
Watkins, Alfred
Great Britain -- Antiquities; Leys -- Great Britain; Megalithic monuments -- Great Britain; Mounds -- Great Britain
The suffix--bury clearly indicates a mound which was a sighting tump.
It is a strange development that these tumps were coveted both as
places to be buried in and to live on. Mrs. Gillespie (who lived at
Trewyn, Pandy, for 17 years) writes me: “I suppose you know that Trewyn
was built on a burial mound,” and goes on to describe the discovery of
a cist with human remains which they dug up under one of the rooms.
I had told her how Trewyn was on two leys (therefore on a sighting
point), one being down the avenue of ancient pine trees straight for
Alt-y-Ynis.
Barrow (another mound name) occurs at Cradley, Pembridge, and
Wheelbarrow Castle, Leominster; Canon Bannister shows that Coldborough
was formerly Colbarwe, and he also associates borough and bury as from
the same root. A variation is berrow as in Broomsberrow. Just as the
sighting stone--ton became the site of our modern town, so the mound
evolved into the borough.
Low--the universal name for the mound in Derbyshire--is not so common
here. But Wormlow Tump, Ludlow, Warslow, and Bradlow indicate sighting
points.
Bury is used alone as the name for a tump, as in the many Bury Farms,
or as at Ivington Bury. A farmer still calls the earth covered tump in
which he winters his roots a bury. Towns like Ledbury first grew round
a sighting mound.
“Broom” occurs with great persistence on leys, with its variations brom
and bram. Bromley and Bramley, Bromton and Bramton, Bromfield (where is
the Old Field with a number of tumuli), Broomsgreen, Broomsberrow, and
the many Broomy Hills are examples. It is not confined to one form of
sighting point, and I surmise (from a faint line of evidence) that a
component part of our modern broom was an essential working implement
of the skilled ley man, and was continued as the staff of the mediæval
pilgrim. Whether the plant broom was the original root word or a
derivative I cannot say.
Lady Lift (a hill-point mound) is on a ley with Lady Harbour Farm, and
the prefix Lady is applied to court, grove, ridge, oak, and meadow in
the county. The Lady Harbour of Hereford Cathedral is on one of the
leys which form Church Street, and had the name before any church was
built there. It might possibly indicate a woman’s shelter on the road.
The suffix--tree, probably originated in a single tree planted as a
sighting point, either as at “Cross of the Tree” in Deerfold Forest, or
to mark the apex of a natural hill as illustrated in Plate XII. Webtree
is on such a hill with two leys passing through it. Its name signifies
that it is the spot where the webbe or weaver met his buyers. He
travelled along the webbe-ley, and there are three Weobleys (formerly
Webbeley) in the county, at Weobley Ash, and Weobley Cross, also the
better known townlet. He also met others at a mark-stone now known as
Webton. The surnames Webb, Webber, and Webster still survive.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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