THE LOST MANOR OF MESTESFORDE. 79 



for, in Lysons' book, which bears the date of 1817, it is stated 

 that Mestesforde " is supposed to have been at a place now 

 called Nestes or Nestus, a little mining village at the foot of 

 a high hill on the north side of the old bath"; i.e., Masson. 

 But even Lysons' book was not the first to promulgate the idea, 

 for in Davies' History of Derbyshire (1811) there is the state- 

 ment that although Mestesforde " was the head of the manor 

 in the time of the Conqueror, it is not now known," and that 

 " there is a hill near Matlock Bath called Nestes, which was 

 formerly celebrated for having several rich lead mines upon it, 

 from whence it is supposed there was a ford across the river 

 Derwent, which was at the foot of the hill, which ford, or the 

 houses of the miners — which were built near it — probably gave 

 the name to the Manor of Metesforde or Netesforde."* 



Step by step, the supposition about the word Nestus has 

 been converted into an assumed fact. It is true that there is 

 a mine on the south side of Masson Hill, the name of which 

 is given as ' Nester's " or " Nestus " mine,t and which, during 

 living memory, has been known as the Rutland Cavern, but 

 Matlock Bridge, where there might have been, and probably 

 was, in ancient times, a ford, which furnished the second half 

 of the name of Mestesforde, is on the east side of Masson 

 Hill, and a distance of a mile away. Further, if we were to 

 accept the view of Messrs. Jewitt, Adam, Lysons, and Davies, 

 there would still be the difficulty of the difference between the 

 initial letters of Nester's and Mestesforde to be overcome. On the 

 wtiole, I am inclined to the view that the name " Mestesforde " 

 originated from the fact that the first part of the place name, 

 that is Mestes, was originally applied to a restricted locality 

 about the ford at Matlock Bridge on the west side of the river. 



At the time of the Domesday Sur\'ey, Mestesforde was a 

 self-contained manor, with si.\ berewicks, one of them called 

 Meslach. The time occupied in the compilation of that great 

 national record is usually designated as from 1080 to 1086. 



* The name as written in Domesday is clearly Mestesforde. 

 t See Farey's Derbyshire., Vol. I., pp. 263-4. 



