82 THE LOST MANOR OF MESTESFORDE. 



Derwent and the south of Bentley Brook. Thus Riber, Stark- 

 holmes, and Willersley — the latter subsequently erected into 

 a separate manor — all local names of circumscribed areas, 

 names which have come into being since the date of Domesday, 

 or were then unrecorded, might well have been included in the 

 berewick of Meslach. 



The Church having been built where it is — that is in Meslach 

 — that name would be appropriately given to it, and conse- 

 quently to the parish allotted to it, and that is the parish 

 which, with the manor, has come down to modern times. 



My suggestion, then, is, that the name of Mestesforde was, 

 if not purely local to the ford about the site of the present 

 Matlock Bridge, at best limited to the parts of the manor 

 on the west side of the river Derwent and to the north and 

 west of Bentley Brook. The bridge having been erected — per- 

 haps about the same time as the church — and the ford abolished, 

 the old name was no longer appropriate, and Meslach, altered 

 to the more euphonious Matlock, became the name of the 

 whole parish and manor. Thus, the manor of Mestesforde is 

 not lost, but still exists within the parish of Matlock. 



