Take first the town of Hitchin itself. Its name in the Domesday Survey was 'Hiz,' and there can be little doubt that it is a Celtic word, meaning 'streams.'[637] The position of the township accords with this name. The river 'Hiz' rises out of the chalk at Wellhead, almost immediately turns a mill, and, flowing through the town, joins the Ivel a few miles lower down in its course, and so flows ultimately into the Ouse. The Orton[638] rises at the west extremity of the township, in [p430] a few hundred yards turns West Mill, and forms the boundary of the parish till it meets the Hiz at Ickleford, where the two are forded by the Icknild way. The Purwell, rising from the south east, forms the boundary between the parishes of Hitchin and Much Wymondley, and then, after turning Purwell Mill, and dividing Hitchin from Walsworth Hamlet, also joins the Hiz before it reaches Ickleford. Thus two of these three pure chalk streams embrace the township, and one passes through it giving its Celtic name Hiz to the town.[639] «Its Celtic name.» It is not likely that either the Romans or the Saxon invaders gave it this Celtic name. «British and Roman remains.» As already mentioned, on the top of the hill, to the east of the town, British sepulchral urns have been recently found. A Roman cemetery, with a large number of sepulchral urns, dishes, and bottles, and coins of Severus, Carausius, Constantine, and Alectus, was turned up a few years ago on the top of the hill on the opposite side of the town, in a part of the open fields called 'The Fox-holes'[640]--a plot of useless ground being often used for burials by the Romans. Another Roman cemetery, with very similar pottery and coins, has been found on Bury Mead, near the line where the arable part ceases and the [p431] Lammas meadow lands begin. Bury field itself (_i.e._ the arable) has been deeply drained, but yielded no coins or urns. Occasional coins and urns have been found in the town itself. This, so far as it goes, is good evidence that Hitchin was a British and a Roman before it was a Saxon town. In the sub-hamlet of Charlton, near Wellhead, the source of the Hiz, small coins of the lower Empire have been found. As already mentioned, a coin of Cunobeline was found in the village of Walsworth. In even the hamlets, therefore, there is some evidence of continuity. At Ickleford, where the Icknild way crosses the Hiz, Roman coins have been found. «Much Wymondley.» The next parish to the east, divided from Hitchin by the Purwell stream, is Much Wymondley. The evidence of continuity, as regards this parish, is remarkably clear. The accompanying map[641] supplies an interesting example of open fields, with their strips and balks and scattered ownership still remaining in 1803. These open arable fields were originally divided off from the village by a stretch of Lammas land. «Roman holding perhaps of a retired veteran.»