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
In the same way another first word element gave the place names (and
surnames from them) of Bosley (Cattle-ley), Boston, Bosbury, Boswell,
Bostock, and Boscastle. Again, Stanley, Stanwell, Stanton, Stanbury,
and Stanbatch. And I have shown how the white (salt) man gave the first
element to innumerable place names on his route. There is a Silver Tump
and a Brass Knoll in the Olchon Valley, both proved sighting tumps.
The names Bowley, Bowling Green (farm, also a quarry near Ewias
Harold), Bolitree, Bolstone, Bollingham, Bal Mawr, Balls Cross,
Ballgate, Bellgate, Bellimore, and Belmont, all seem akin to the
rounded outline of an inverted bowl, or to boils, bowels, and belly of
animal life, and indicate the rounded tump.
The house at Bolitree is built on a tump with signs of a moat, and as I
found a ley through Bollingham (house and chapel) I went there to find
the bol, and there it was, a fine tump with an old summerhouse on its
summit.
Gate in a place name (as in Hill Gate, Three Gates, Ballgate, England’s
Gate, Burley Gate, etc.) did not mean, as now, something which stopped
a way (that was called a lid-yatt), but the way itself. It is much the
same as the word pass. The same element (modified) is in such names as
Gatley, Gatsford, Yatton, Symonds Yat, Woodyatt’s Cross.
Lee Line and Timberline Wood are place names clearly describing leys.
There is a Linton and a Linley at Stanford Bishop--the mark stone and
the ley. I think that Lyonshall, Lynhales, Lion Farm, and Hobby Lyons
are variations.
Such names as Winslow, Preston Wynne, Winsley, and Winyard (Radnor
Forest) indicate the road by which wine was brought. Totnor,
Totteridge, Tothill, and Twt indicate (as Mr. J. G. Wood has pointed
out) tumps, and they are all sighting tumps on leys. Mr. Wood (who has
come very near discovering the ley) also--in Woolhope Transactions for
1919--connects Titterstone, Clee Hill (Plate I.) with the word Tot or
Toot. Tooting and Tottenham are London forms of the word. Rosemary
Topping (English Bicknor) is a much prettier name for a sighting tump.
Bur or Burl seems to be descriptive of some form of sighting point.
Leys pass through Burley, Burlton, Burton (many of this name), Burford,
and The Burcot; and there is a Burl Hill in Radnorshire.
Although a ley ran from peak to peak there must have been an earlier
termination to its useful part, or a still more restricted part used
by traders. Hence--in London--Finsbury; Capel-y-fin in the Black
Mountains; and Fine Street, near Letton, have probably the same
meaning, which, however, seems to be locally more often expressed by
the word end, as in New End (Canon Pyon), Red Wych End (Cowarne),
Nupend, etc.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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