By the Rev. Canon Jackson, F.S.A. 283 
from which some have thought that this town takes its name, does 
not help very much; for it is so small as not always to be seen. The 
Deverel helps a little more. This rivulet gives its name to five 
contiguous parishes—Brixton Deverel, Monkton Deverel, Longbridge 
Deverel, Hill Deverel, and, farthest off, Kingston Deverel. 
It is a common belief that the little river itself is ca//ed Deverel 
from the two words “dive” and “rill,” because the rill dives 
underground, and, after a certain subterranean passage, re-appears. 
Before settling whether the river is so called, from diving, it is better 
to be quite sure that it does dive. 
Such rivers there certainly are. Without going back to the 
classical Arethusa, said to sink into the earth in Greece and emerge 
in Sicily (which may or may not be true), I happen to be very well 
acquainted with one in Staffordshire, which disappears in the ground 
near the Duke of Devonshire’s copper mine at Ecton, and after a 
course of four or five miles comes bubbling up, a very considerable 
stream, in a grotto in a gentleman’s garden. Having once lived at 
that place for two or three years, I can vouch for the fact. But 
such things are not very common ; so one is curious to know whether 
there 7s any such natural phenomenon near here. 
It is mentioned in several old books. First, in “ Drayton’s 
_ Polyolbion,” a very long geographical poem, published in 1613. 
In this poem all the hills, woods and rivers in England are personified, 
and made to converse with one another about their history. The 
work has maps, on a rough scale, in which these personified rivers 
are represented ; and in that of Wiltshire, the goddess “ Dyver” 
drawn as half-buried in the ground, her feet coming out at one hole 
and her head at another. 
__ It is also mentioned in Camden’s Britannia and in John Aubrey’s 
_ Natural History of Wilts. Finding it in those authorities, Bishop 
_ Tanner, a very eminent divine, author of the great work called 
_“Notitia Monastica,” [a native of this county, born at Lavington 
in 1674, and anxious to preserve its history,] was curious to know 
the truth of the story. He says, “ I am informed by the minister 
of. Longbridge Deverill, and another gentleman that lived at Maiden 
Bradley thirty years that they never knew or heard of this river 
