HISTORY OF NORTON. II 



Henpepper Field is frequent : possibly hanep acer, or hemp field. 

 Woolhouse Field. Pigman Croft: Pigman = swineherd. Pighills, 

 Swine Backfield. Gooselaiids. Cinder Hill. Ashes Wood. 

 These words have reference to the charcoal burning which was 

 here carried on very extensively, as the parish registers show. 

 Selloak Spring Wood. A very ancient family called Seliok was 

 seated at Norton. Query whether they gave their name to this 

 wood, or themselves derived their name from the place? Their 

 crest is a punning one; an oak leaf. Coney greave : i.e., rabbit 

 wood. Lower Camp Field; Upper Camp Field ; (both at Wood- 

 scats) ; Starnel greave : i.e., Starling Grove. Twenty ivell Sick. 

 Twenty well, written Quintinewell in the Beauchief charters : St. 

 Quintin's well, near the abbey, a name given by the canons. Fog 

 Ing : Fog - rank grass ; Ing = a meadow; of Scandinavian origin. 

 Pinge Wood, Far Weald, Shoebroad Close, Great Sprent, and 

 Little Sprent. Sprint, and sprunt, provincial English for a hill or 

 "brae." Crimbles, Cobnar field. 



My rambling course now leads me to the parish registers. 

 "What duller-looking volume," says Hartley Coleridge, "than 

 a Parish Register? What drier commentary on the text mors 

 omnibus communis? What is it but a barren abstract of mortality — 



Where to be born, and die, 



Of rich and poor makes all the history?" 



The first volume of the Norton Register is, as we shall see, 

 rather more than a barren abstract of mortality. It almost in- 

 variably records the social position of the persons mentioned in 

 it ; a thing which is not common in parish registers. The 

 number of sickle-smiths is very remarkable ; indeed sickle-making 

 seems to have been the chief occupation of the villagers. They 

 are variously described as fcenisecarum percussor, pulsor, confector, 

 faber, molitor, &>c. Common labourers are described as opifices 

 gregarii; charcoal burners, carbonari;' lignarii ; cutlers, cuiellarii ; 

 locksmiths, clavifadorcs ; wheelwrights, rotarum fdbri ; tailors, 

 vestiarii, and sometimes rudiarii. Cooke Tooke, of Greenhill, is 

 described as a shot maker. (Mr. Gill and another had a shot 

 manufactory at Greenhill, and incurred the suspicion of the 



