evel, XIV. (3) THE COTTESWOLD HILLS 237 
“ Cotteswold Hills,” after a consideration of the evidence. 
Such evidence may now be detailed. 
In February, 1879, John Bellows read a paper on “ The 
Etymology of the word ‘Cotteswold.’” This paper, 
unfortunately, was not published in our Proceedings ; but 
it is summarised in the Presidential address, and may be 
found in Vol. vii., p. 113. His conclusions were that the 
hill name, in common with other geographical names, is 
of Welsh origin; that a derivation from “cots, sheep 
cots,” is quite out of question, and he remarks, “On the 
other hand, the very frequent occurrence of the syllable 
‘cot’ or ‘cote’ in the names of places, both in the Cottes- 
wolds and elsewhere, in places either wooded or once 
wooded, points pretty clearly to ‘coit’ or ‘coet,’ the old 
Welsh word for wood being the first syllable of that 
name.” 
“He took the original appellation to be ‘ coet is gwél,’ 
—the ‘ woods under the plain,’ and that the Saxons altered 
the sound of the last syllable to ‘wold, a hill.’ Asa 
matter of fact, at the present day the ‘w’ is not sounded 
by the Cotteswold peasantry, who say ‘ Cots’ells.’” 
Writing years afterwards, I came to conclusions so 
nearly the same, that it might be said I had plagiarised our 
esteemed member without acknowledgment. But it was 
quite an independent investigation on my part, and I knew 
nothing of his communication, for as it does not appear as 
a separate paper, and as there is no index to our Proceed- 
ing, it is, with a host of other good observations made by 
the older members of our Club, buried in the very miscel- 
laneous matter which necessarily belongs to a Presidential 
summary of events. 
However, I differ from John Bellows in one or two 
important details. What I gave as my opinion is as 
it Wald, which means a wood or forest. 
