XXVIII. 



XOTES OX THE PLACE-XAMES AXD FIELD-XAMES OF THE 

 PARISH OF WATFORD, HERTS. /***»'"-,""." 



/fVV) ^ ^ ^^ Pkrcy Manning, M.A., F.S.A. ( JUL 20 1^42 



Read at Watford, \&th January, l^QO. V-^ ^B H A 



This paper has no claim to be considered as more than an essm/, 

 written in the hope of calling the attention of members of this 

 Society to a somewhat neglected subject. I am fully aware that 

 many of the points touched upon deserve far more exhaustive 

 treatment than I have been able to devote to them within a certain 

 limited space. 



"What I have done has been to compile a list of the more 

 interesting names in the old parish of Watford (i.e. including 

 Oxhey and Leavesden), prefaced by (1) some general remarks on 

 the subject of place-names, (2) an analysis of the more usual 

 sources of nomenclature, (3) a list of the terms used to denote 

 divisions of land. 



My thanks are due to the late Rev. T. H. Kynaston, Rector of 

 Bushey ; the Rev. Lee James, Vicar of Watford ; the Rev. Newton 

 Price, Vicar of Oxhey ; Messrs. Humbert & Flint, of Watford ; 

 and Mr. A. Wall, of Watford; who have either allowed me access 

 to documents in their custody or given me help in other ways. 



I. General Remarks. 



The subject of place-names is one that, so far as I know, has not 

 yet been brought under the notice of this Society, possibly because 

 it has been thought to lie somewhat outside the range of the 

 Society's objects. It therefore would seem well to draw your 

 attention to some of the main facts that may be arrived at from the 

 collection and comparison of the names of places and fields, even in 

 80 small a district as a single parish, and thus to show what claims 

 the study of place- and field-names has to the attention of a 

 Natural History Society. 



One of the most obvious facts about place-names is the way in 

 which they preserve, as it were, in a fossilized form, the dialect of 

 the district ; and as a branch, of ethnology, dialect may fairly be 

 said to come within the scope of a Natural History Society. For 

 instance, a name like " Eye Spring " shows two words, one of 

 which has long been obsolete altogether, while the other has 

 disappeared from literary English. " Eye " is simply the Anglo- 

 Saxon " ea " — water; "Spring" is another word for wood, and 

 is so used in the seventeenth century by Fletcher. 



The word "toft" in " Jacketts Toft " is one of many iutroduced 

 by the Scandinavian invaders of this country. 



Then, again, for the ethnologist, the distribution of family 

 names is not without its significance, as has been pointed out by 



VOL. X. — PART VI. 15 



