2nd s. N« 41., Oct. 11. '56.] 



NOTES AND QITERIES. 



291 



Ang.'Sax.lich, dead; and that the tradition which 

 assigns the stone as a resting-place for the coffin 

 may be correct ; or that the stones actually mark 

 graves. Such rude stone memorials are common 

 enough. In Welsh they are called ZZec/t, i.e. any 

 flat stone, tablet ; as at Trelech, near Monmouth, 

 where there are three erect stones called Harold's 

 Grave. Or another derivation may be given from 

 Celtic, llecli, llecheriy a stone, and Saxon stan, a 

 stone : such tautological etymologies not being 

 uncommon, as LlecJi-vaen, near Brecknock, from 

 Uec?i and macn, i.e. stony-stone. Also a stone nine 

 feet high in Anglesey, called Maen Llechgwen- 

 varwi/dd, i. e. the stone of the stone of St. Cyn- 

 varwy. 



Licker Inch was probably an island used for 

 funereal purposes, like St. Coin's Inch or lona. 



Eden Warwick. 



Birmingham. 



P. C. observes that the Lecherstones near Dun- 

 fermline are said to have been used as resting- 

 places for the coffins at funerals. May not lecker' 

 stone, then, be simply Leichstein, the body-stone ? 

 The Gothic leik, the Anglo-Saxon lie, tlie Swedish 

 lik, the German leicTie and leich-nam, all signify a 

 body — the human body made like or in the image 

 of the Creator. Leichstein is commonly used for 

 grave-stone or monument, cippus ; but cippus also 

 signified a stone for a mark, set up as the boulder 

 lecherstones seem to have been. As we have leich- 

 ahdanhung for a farewell speech over a dead body, 

 leichhitter for a prayer over such body, leich- 

 gesang, leickerze, leichmahlzeit, leichtuch, and this 

 very word in its form of leichstein, I venture to 

 suggest that lecherstone may be so named, less in 

 reference to the lectures given at the stone, than 

 to the leiche, or body, which rested upon it. 



J. DORAN. 



I would suggest to P. C. that the word lecher is 

 a corruption of the German leiche (of which we 

 have other forms in lyhe-wake and lich-gate^, and 

 that the stone was so called from the circumstance 

 of the corpse being rested thereon, and not from 

 any lesson or lecture delivered then and there. 



Geo. E. Frere. 



Hoyden Hall, Diss. 



CROMWEEL HOUSE, OLD BROMPTON. 



(2°'^ S. ii. 208.) 



I was well acquainted with this old house and 

 the pleasant lanes by which it was surrounded, 

 now, alas ! no more. The traditions of the neigh- 

 bourhood I have often listened to, but could never 

 gain any satisfactory information as to the house 

 having been the residence of any of the Cromwell 



family. On the contrary, all the stories fell to the 

 ground upon examination. 



The house was known as Hale House in 1596, 

 when a rent charge of 20s. per annum was laid 

 upon it for the poor of Kensington parish. In 

 1630 it was purchased by William Methwold, 

 Esq., of the executors of Sir William Blake, who 

 died in that year. This gentleman seems to have 

 been its constant occupant till the period of his 

 death, which occurred in 1652. He is described 

 of Hale House in his will. 



On May 10, 1653, immediately after his return 

 from Ireland, " Mr. Henry Cromwell was married 

 to Elizabeth Russell, daughter of Sir Thomas 

 Russell," at Kensington Church ; after which, ac- 

 cording to Noble, " he chiefly resided at White- 

 hall." In the following year (1654) he returned 

 to Ireland, and upon his taking his leave of that 

 kingdom, he retired to Spinney Abbey, near So- 

 ham, in Cambridgeshire, where he died in 1673. 

 The chances of Henry Cromwell's having resided 

 at Hale House are therefore but slender. 



In 1668 Hale House appears to have been in- 

 habited by the Lawrences of Shurdington in 

 Gloucestershire ; in ] 682 It was in the occupation 

 of Francis Lord Howard of Effingham, the birth 

 of Avhose son is thus recorded in the parish re- 

 gisters : 



« July 7, 1682. The IlonWe Thomas Howard, son of 

 the E' Hon. Francis \J^ Howard, Baron of Effingham, and 

 the Lady Philadelphia, was born at Hale House in this 

 parish." 



Hale House was still the property of the Meth- 

 wold family, who in 1754 sold it to John Fleming, 

 Esq., afterwards created a baronet ; and in 1790 

 it was the joint property of the Earl of Harring- 

 ton and Sir Richard Worsley, Bart., who married 

 his daughters and coheirs. Such is the brief his- 

 tory of the proprietors and inhabitants of Crom- 

 well House. 



The tradition that it was the residence of the 

 Lord Chief Justice Hale has probably no founda- 

 tion, as we see the house was designated Hale 

 House before he was born. 



Cromwell's gift to Kensington parish is not re- 

 corded in the parochial books ; and Mrs. Hall's 

 assertion that Richard Cromwell was a ratepayer 

 in the same is in a like predicament. The Pil' 

 grimages to English Shrines is a book got up for 

 sale, and ought never to be quoted as an authority. 



I have merely to add that these few particulars 

 are chiefly derived from one of Pennant's MS. 

 note-books, formerly in my possession. 



Edward F. Rimbauet. 



INSCRIPTION FOR A WATCH. 



(2"'J S. ii. 109.) 

 The excellent verses, for such they really are, 

 concerning the author of which inquiry is made by 



