218 PoUerne. 



good sprinkling- of the Celtic element in local names, and in casting 

 my eye over the terrier of Potfcerne I saw not a few that were 

 evident corruptions of old Welsh names. Possibly therefore the 

 former element in this word (which is always in old documents spelt 

 Poterne) may be the same as that contained in Poic-di^&r, the name 

 of a hundred in Cornwall, and which means " oak-country." Poii- 

 ghill in ('ornwall, and Po-wys in Wales, contain the same element. 

 Terne seems likely enough to be the Welsh tei/rn (=King) ; e.g., 

 Ym.-tern means the King's Castle, '^o-ierne, thus interpreted, would 

 signify the King's land, or country. No doubt it was a grant 

 from the crown to the early Bishops of Wiltshire. There is in the 

 name of another Wiltshire Hundred, viz., Frustfield, formerly 

 Ferstes-feld, that is most probably the " field of the Prince or 

 Chieftain," in some sort a parallel instance, which may give a little 

 colour to the conjecture. I give it, not because I fully believe in it 

 myself, but because I have no better to offer.' 



I have spoken of Potterne as the name of a Hundred. It was not 

 so originally. At the time of Domesday there was a large hundred 

 called Ruge-herg, including a number of places in this neighbourhood. 

 In the Exon Domesday we find Canynges named as a separate hun- 

 dred. That of Ruge-berg was subsequently divided into two, the 

 one called Rugeberg-Regis of which the King was lord, comprising 

 the Cheverells, East Lavington, and Imber; the other, called 

 Rugeberg-Episcopi, comprising Potterne, Rowde, West Lavington, 

 and Tilshead, the lordship of which was vested in the Bishop.^ 



The name Ruge-herg means literally " rough or hoar hill," or, it 

 may be, " barrow or tumulus." In Anglo-Saxon nomenclature the 



' After all it is possible that the former syllable in the word Po<-ern, and in 

 that of Po<-ton, in Bedfordshire, is the abbreviated or corrupt form of some 

 personal name, and so denotes the dwelling [cern), or village {tiin) of an old 

 owner or occupier whose precise designation is lost. Thus GoDsbury, near 

 CoUingbourn Kingston, is in the Hyde Chartulary (Rolls Series, p. 107) Guthre- 

 dbs-herg, i.e., Guthred's hill (or barrow). The name Putta, of which the well 

 known Pott may possibly be a modern equivalent, is that of a Bishop of 

 BiOchester in the year 669. But this is simple conjecture. 



^Nomina Villarum for "Wilts. — See Wilts Mag., xii., 17. 



