156 



El^t ^ames of places m Mtltsljke. 



By the Rev. Prebendary "W. H. JoifBS, F.S.A., 



Vicar of Bradford-on-Avon, 



I. — On the Celtic Element in Wiltshiue Local Names. 

 ^HERE is no County, at all events in the south of England, that 

 possesses more numerous or more interesting remains of its 

 earliest known inhabitants than Wiltshire. ■ Avebukt and Stonbhengb 

 are mysterious monuments of a remote antiquity, and seem to stand in 

 the same relation to Britain as the pyramids do to Egypt, or the 

 cave-temples to India. Silburt, moreover, the largest artificial 

 mound in the world, the countless tumuli scattered over our downs, 

 and the enormous dykes — boundary-lines, most probably, of the 

 territory of ancient tribes — all are memorials of our early ancestors, 

 of men who lived and died at least two thousand years ago. 



If anywhere therefore we might expect to find, in Local Names, 

 traces of our Celtic forefathers, it would be in Wiltshire. It is the 

 object of this essay to point out such examples as may fairly be de- 

 rived from this source. 



2. A few preliminary remarks would seem to be necessary, as an 

 undertaking like the present is not only perilous, but by some may be 

 deemed unprofitable. The "Names'^ then^.selves have in the course 

 of centuries assumed so different a form from their original, as not 

 only to afford no exact indication of their meaning, but even to lead 

 us into erroneous opinions concerning them. On such a subject, 

 much must after all be matter of conjecture, on which the conclusions 

 of others may be of equal, or perhaps greater, weight than our own. 

 Moreover with regard to these very old names, we have no opportu- 

 nity, from the want of any written records cotemporaneous with the 

 places which they represent, of ascertaining, as in, other cases, their 

 original form. Our course under such circumstances is, where we 

 are able, to trace out apparently similar formations in the names 

 of Cornwall, or Wales, or in other countries, where a class of 



