177 



moat, must have been the Twyver, from its course past the Mill 

 already mentioned.* 



Just below the part of Westgate Street where the " Little 

 Severn" must once have come, is what is called "Saint Nicholas 

 Church." I have doubts whether Nicholas was really a Saint 

 at all ; but he was regarded as the patron of sailors ; and it 

 may possibly have been considered fitting to dedicate to him 

 a place of worship on the river's bank. The ground it stands 

 upon is several feet below the level of the present street. 



In confirmati9n of DocKham being the local term for Dyke- 

 ham I may adduce the name Dog Lane, next my own premises, 

 at the opposite end of the city, covering the actual line of the 

 fosse. It has not an attractive look — no one would care to head 

 fancy note-paper with it — and I confess to having had an idea 

 of suggesting that the Corporation should call it Dog-Rose 

 Lane instead; and then gradually drop the first syllable, as 

 needless. But Doch Lane is clearly its proper form. At the 

 time the Saxon word Doch was applied to the fosse of the city, 

 it is evident it had not become, as it now is, restricted to a 

 " cutting" intended specially for ships. 



I recollect, many years ago, often hearing a tradition in 

 vogue among the inhabitants of "The Island," that "in 

 old times" boats had been used on Dockham Ditch, laden 

 with stone for the building of "the College."! H. Y. J. 

 Taylor tells me that there is a similar tradition still lin- 

 gering about the neighbourhood of Upton and Cooper's Hill, 

 as to the Twyver having been used for floating rafts laden 

 with stone for building " the College." They say the stream 

 Avas dammed at certain intervals till the water accumulated 

 suflSciently to carry the raft over one such reach at a time ; the 



* Since writing this I find an arm of the Twyver still runs there, under- 

 ground. 



t The onli/ name by which the Cathedral is known to many of the poorer 

 inhabitants of the city. The fact is, the Abbey only became a Cathedi-al in 

 the time of Henry VIII, and there has not been time to accustom the people 

 to its new name. It is only the thii-d of a thousand years since the change 

 was made : a mere nothing in a city that has stood for nearly a third of the 

 world's history from Adam I 



