174 The Names of Places in Wiltshire. 



think that the former portion of the name is from the Corn- 

 ish cos {= a wood). [It mai/ however be from the Welsh 

 cors (= a marsh) .] 

 Chittoe. \ The former of these words was originally spelt Chit- 

 Chitterne. ' wege, or Chit-way, and means the " way by the wood ; 

 the latter, it is believed, means the " dwelling in the wood/' 

 the termination being the Anglo-Saxon cern, or em, (=a 

 dwelling). The Domesday name is spelt Chetre, and, in one 

 case, Cheltre. 



V. — Miscellaneous Words : — 



16. It is by no means easy to class many other Local Names, 

 which nevertheless seem to be of Celtic origin, under general heads. 

 We therefore append a list of such Names, as far as possible in alpha- 

 betical order, with suggested interpretations. 



Ambresbtjry \ Originally Caer Emrys and afterwards Amhreshury, 

 or > i.e., the "burg,^^ or town of Ambrosius, for in this 



Amesbury. ) Latinised form the name of this British Chief is 

 more familiar to us. He became a King in Britain in the 

 year 464, and for some forty-five years carried on a suc- 

 cessful struggle against the advancing Saxons. Polydore 

 Virgil assigns him a soldier^s death, and Stonehenge, which 

 is in the immediate neighbourhood of Amesbury, for a monu- 

 ment. The tradition, though rejected in its specific form, 

 may be perhaps accepted as in some sort evidence that he 

 died in battle, and fell somewhere in the vicinity of Amesbury. 

 This Local Name is given because it is a memorial of the 

 primitive Christianity of Britain. The Welsh Triads speak of 

 this place as the site of a great monastery in which "there were 

 2400 saints, that is, there were 100 for every hour of the day 

 and night in rotation perpetuating the praise of God without 

 intermission,^^ Hence, as Dr. Guest says, — " The choir of 

 Ambrosius was probably, in the middle of the fifth century, 

 the monastery of Britain — the centre from which flowed the 

 blessings of Christianity and civilization.''' That the place 

 remained in the possession of the Britons, for some time after 



