226 Ancient Cirencester, and Us Streets and Hundreds. 



century, 1 have found the name written Dolors Street, "and Sir 

 Robert Atkjms allowed himself to be misled by the transcriber he 

 employed, and calls the Almery Grange, AU-mary. The phonetic 

 corruption from Dolehall to Dollar is very easy to account for, and is 

 old enough. In J. George's annual accounts to the King, 1540, 

 &c., the name is always written Dolehall, while in his deed of entail, 

 1552, it is written Dollar. Similarly in a list of unsold chantry 

 lands in James the First's reign, among the Harleian manuscripts, 

 I found " Cheaping alias Sheapiug Street.'' 



St. Lawrence Street is of course Gloucester Street, the bridge by 

 the Yellow School being St. John's Bridge, the bridge at the further 

 end being the Gilden-bridge, so called I presume because the market 

 tolls were taken there of those who came into the town from that direc- 

 tion, for I find no account of am^ guild in the town till the reign of 

 Edward III., and the deeds concerning tenements near Gildenbridge 

 are all from A.D. 1200 to 1300; but in 1540 I think that the 

 bridge called the Bailiff's Bridge must be meant for it. 



Barton Mill was not the early name. The builder, or at any rate 

 the occupier at the beginning of the thirteenth century was Richard 

 Clerk, and the mill or mills bore his name. Afterwards they are 

 described as two mills near the Barton, called Clerkenmulles : the 

 adjoining meadow appears in 1459 as Clerkesmeade, the mill being 

 still Clerkesmyll. In 1540 it is Clerksmyll alias Barton Mills. In 

 an early deed the water is described as running from Gildenebrigge 

 to the mill of Rich. Clerk. 



Raton Rewe of A.D. 1459, evidently a small place, would seem 

 to have been the modern Spitalgate-lane, for a curtilage is said to 

 have been bounded by the Abbot's wall on one side. As to the 

 meaning of the name, I take the following from Mr. S. Tymms' 

 note on old wills from the Register of the Commissary of Bury St. 

 Edmonds : " Ratunrowe; a raton in East Anglian dialect was either 

 a weasel or a water-rat. Ratun or Raton, rato, sorex (Prompt Parv.) 

 Sorex est mus aquaticus, a ratte (Ortus Vocabulorum) ." Sir John 

 Mandeville says of the Tartars, " Alle maner of wylde beastes they 

 eten, houndes, cattes, ratouns, &c. Ratun-rowe may have been a 

 street infested by such ' wylde beestes,' either very near a stream 



