How many, or how few, of Lewisham’s myriads ever idly speculate whence came the name of the place? According to authorities who are now, in these more scientific times, largely discredited, it comes from Anglo-Saxon words meaning “the dwelling among the meadows,” or the leas—the “leas home”—and was anciently spelled Levesham and Lewesham. Just a few vestiges of this ancient rurality remain, in the strips of meadows—now converted into what are shaping as beautiful parks—that fringe the course of the Ravensbourne on either bank, from Catford Bridge to Ladywell; but we are now bidden disregard those meadows in any relationship with the name of Lewisham. The place is first mentioned in a charter of Ethelbert of Wessex, dated A.D. 862, in which it is called “Liofshema”; and fifty-six years later, in a charter granted by Ethelswitha, daughter of Alfred the Great, it assumes the form of “Lieuesham,” which gives us exactly the modern pronunciation. This, it has been remarked, has nothing to do with meadows, leas, or pastures, but means literally “dear son’s home.” But, having reached that point, we come to a full stop, for no one can tell us who was that “dear son”; and the theory that the name of Leveson similarly derives from Liof-or Leof-suna, seems to have little bearing upon the history of the place. Ladywell, just mentioned, is itself the name of a great crowded district, and it is thus curious to reflect that the name was utterly unknown until modern times. It arose from one of two closely neighbouring wells—one reputed to be medicinal—situated in what is now the road turning off the highway, past Lewisham old vicarage, to Ladywell railway-station and Brockley, which name itself—meaning, as it does, the “badger’s meadow”—enshrines the former rustic appearance of these parts. Ancient records and county histories may be searched in vain for mention of the “Lady Well,” which, oddly enough, seems to have acquired its name about the end of the eighteenth century. It was, about 1820, the subject of a published plate, showing it with a circular stone kerb, placed by the wayside of a pretty rustic road, embowered in trees. Thus it remained, amid ever deteriorating surroundings, until 1866, when it was destroyed in the course of sewer-making operations for the newly risen suburb that had grown around the South-Eastern railway-station of “Ladywell,” opened in January, 1857.