258 Cherhild Gleanings. 
fight, both in the days when the earthworks at Oldborough were 
made and in those in which they were subsequently re-occupied and 
re-modelled. In a letter by Hearne, the Editor of Leland’s Itin- 
erary, upon “Some Antiquities between London and Oxford,” he 
gives a translation of a note which he had discovered upon the 
margin of some ancient MS. to the following effect :—“ In the year 
$21 a battle was fought between’Egbert, King of the West Saxons, 
and Ceolwulph, King of Mercia, in a place called Cherrenhull, be- 
tween Abingdon and Oxford, in which Ceolwulph was overthrown.” 
And he adds “ Probably Cherhill, Wilts; as there is no Cherrenhull 
between Abingdon and Oxford; but at Wilts Cherhill there is a 
camp.” I would not on any account lay undue stress upon the 
opinion of this unknown antiquarian. At the same time it is 
noticeable that the Saxon Chronicle, though it does not specifically 
name this fight, mentions that in the year 821 Ceolwulph was in 
difficulties, which one may regard as a confirmation of the tradition, 
good for what it may be worth. 
The meaning of the name of Cherhill is a matter of considerable 
doubt. A learned writer of the present day says that it “‘baffles 
the enquiry of the etymologist to unravel its derivation.” This 
may be so, but we all know who proverbially rush in where angels 
fear to tread; so I shall not be diverted by this expression of opinion 
from offering at any rate a suggestion on the subject... 
Now I have found the name written at different periods in no less 
than fifteen different ways, and if Hearne be right in identifying 
Cherhill with Cherrenhull, we shall have yet another form, which 
may perhaps throw some light upon the subject. And I may add, 
moreover, that even if we hold Hearne to be quite wrong in this 
theory of his, and the undoubted difficulties as to the identification 
of Cherhill and Cherrenhull to be insurmountable, it by no means_ 
follows that the Cherhill of the present day was not as much Cherren- 
hull originally, as that other village between Abingdon and Oxford, 
which has so strangely and unaccountably disappeared. 
Well, then, the word Kerran, or Kirran, means in Anglo-Saxon 
to turn, and Hu// means hill. Now the old road, which must from 
very early times have been an important highway for the West of 
