Old Field Names. By Rev. CANON ELLACOMBE, Vicar of Bitton. 
(Read December 16th, 1891.) 
It is now many years since Dr. Prior, writing to me on plant 
names, suggested to me that I should look after the Old‘Field Names 
in my parish. I saw at once that it might be a curious and 
interesting subject of inquiry, but I never followed it up, till 
accident almost forced it upon me. This year a new Tithe Act 
was passed, which has obliged Tithe owners to look up their Tithe 
Commutation Awards. As I looked through mine of 1843, I wag 
struck with the great number of names that were unknown to 
me, and which I could see had in many cases passed away ; and 
thinking of Dr. Prior’s suggestion, I went through them more 
carefully, till I came to the conclusion that the search which had 
interested me might help to pass one of our winter afternoons in 
the Bath Field Club, and might, perhaps, be made interesting to 
some of the members. Hui ille charte. 
The subject is a very large one, and to write anything like an 
exhaustive account would require a volume, and a very large 
volume, for J think it likely that in every parish in England one 
or more field names would be found, peculiar to that parish and 
found nowhere else. I shall almost entirely confine myself to my 
own parish of Bitton, and even there the amount of material is so 
large, that I am more afraid of wearying you, than of finding too: 
little to fill up our usual length of paper. 
I think the simplest way will be to take first the general names, 
and then the more particular and special names. By general 
names I mean such as are more or less in use all over England ; 
words which we may call generic, applied to a vast number of: 
fields, and marked off to special fields by some distinguishing 
adjunct. I mean such words as field, meadow, close, leaze, tyning, 
paddock, barton, hayes, etc. These all sound very simple words, 
