[24] A remarkable cluster of four or five names, with the form “-hoe,” occurs on the coast of North Devon, in that part where we have already pointed to the unrecorded Mercian descents upon the Damnonian Britons (see before pp. 119-121). This is very faraway from the much more numerous assemblages of it, which are in the Anglian parts of England. It has been contended that this name-form is a vestige of the Danes, and, on this North Devon coast, the Danes might quite as likely have left their mark, as the Mercians. But one of them, “Martinhoe,” is formed by the addition of “-hoe” to the Christian dedication of the church: not likely, therefore, to have been named by a pagan colony. Another place, in East Devon not many miles from the Mercian Widworthy-St. Cuthbert already mentioned, (p. 125), called “Pinhoe,” is recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, A.D. 1001, to have been burnt _by_ the Danes in revenge of a Saxon defeat. Would this revenge have fallen upon their own countrymen? Also, close to the South Devon dedication of St. Werburgh (p. 121), at Wembury, before mentioned, are two examples of this name-form. One, the well-known “Hoe,” of Plymouth; another, the village of “Hooe,” in the promontory itself, where Wembury stands. Again, we have seen above that this very “regio,” in Kent, which now engages us, was so named “Hogh” so early as A.D. 738. Very early for the Danes. Add to this: contemporary with the first appearance of the Danes in Northumbria, at Lindisfarne, there was already a place called “Billingahoh,” now “Billing_ham_,” near Stockton. It is, therefore, evident that “-hoe” was here before the Danes, and can be no other than an Anglian peculiarity. It is, therefore, an additional evidence, and very strong confirmation, of what has been already said of the great Mercian descent upon Devon, that this Anglianism is found strewed in the very path of it. It will presently be seen that, besides Simeon of Durham, and other early chroniclers, both Somner and Camden took it for granted that “-hoe” is only another form, or dialect of “-ham.” It is however not unlikely, that, as in many other cases, a second mark of names “-haw” or “-haugh,” said to be Danish, has been concurrent with and undistinguished from this. [25] Cod. Dip., No. LXXXV. [26] 8_b_. [27] First mentioned by Beda as “Clofeshoch,” and in K. Alfred’s translation “Clofeshooh.” [28] See Cod. Dip. _passim_, for other varieties of the name. [29] Two S. Chronicles, Oxford, 1565.