132 THE CHILTERN COUNTRY. 
Hirowam means village by the brook. The same element 
oceurs in Hitchenden, the proper name of the picturesque parish 
which bounds that of Wycombe on the north. The late pro- 
prietor of that place, Mr. John Norris, performed the curious 
feat of transmuting it into Hughenden, a name utterly impossible 
to be pronounced by Saxon lips, and in every respect nonde- 
script and unmeaning. The name was indeed occasionally spelt 
with u, as Hutchenden, and Hugenden (in which the g was soft, and 
not differing really from ch) but the guttural gh is quite unknown 
and inadmissible in the Anglo-Saxon language, common though 
itis among our Celtic neighbours of Wales and Ireland. Hitchen 
is thus discovered to be the original name of the stream which 
joins the Ouse on the Oxford Road of Wycombe, and is identical 
with that of the river on which the city of Winchester stands— 
the Itchen. 
HorsENDEN is Horsa’s town. Horsa was an undeniable Saxon, 
as every schoolboy knows. 
Instone. Ibstone is properly spelt Hibe-stanes, meaning the 
high stones which here bounded the counties of Buckingham and 
Oxford. 
Inmzr. This name is properly spelt Ze/-mer, and means Eel- 
marsh. If our Society numbers any fish-fanciers, perhaps they 
can inform us how it happens that the eel, once so plentifulin our 
upland valleys, is now no longer to be found? I suppose that as 
our marshes have been drained, the mud on which the eel fattens 
has disappeared ; and as the stream grows cleaner, the eel can no 
longer find feeding ground. The muddiest rivers in Europe pro- 
duce the best eels. In Domesday Book several Chiltern parishes 
(West Wycombe, Hitcham, &c.) are rated to produce as many 
eels as those on the river Thames (Taplow, Marlow, Eton, &c.). 
IsENHAMPSTEAD, or IsSELHAMPSTEAD, is the name of two adjoin- 
ing villages, called for distinction Iselhampstead Chenies and 
Iselhampstead Latimers, and now better known by these dis- 
tinctive epithets than by their native names. sen or Jsel means 
river, and is one of a very large family of names of Celtic stock, 
signifying the same thing. 
