i62 PROCEEDINGS COTTESWOLD CLUB 191 1 



the Church itself. It certainly looks older, and the ornamentation — a bowl 

 supported by eight angels, with eight angels at the base of the pedestal — 

 is not characteristic of fifteenth-century work. 



Luncheon was served at the Wheatsheaf Hotel, and at the close of the 

 meal, Mr J. Sawyer (who had previously described the Churchl, was invited 

 by the President to make some observations on the archaeology of the neigh- 

 bourhood. In reply, Mr Sawyer gave the following outline of the English 

 settlement on the Cotteswolds, with special reference to the wool-trade : — 



The English Settlement 



The English conquest of the Cotteswolds dates from 577, when the King 

 of Cirencester, with the Kings of Gloucester and Bath, fell beneath the sword 

 of the West-Saxon invaders on the famous battlefield at Dyrham. In the 

 far-spreading uplands the new-comers saw their future home. Fast on 

 their heels came their kindred whom they had left behind on the shores of the 

 Baltic, and in a few years the Cotteswolds were peopled by a new race, 

 speaking a new tongue, the tongue which is spoken here to-day. Some- 

 times a family lived by itself, with its farm and household servants, and 

 owned and cultivated land around the house. Sometimes two or three or 

 more famihes related to each other joined together in one settlement, forming, 

 indeed, a small village. But their communities were never large. Their 

 occupation, for they were agriculturists, pure and simple, forbade it, and 

 so did their racial instinct, and the sparseness of town life on the Cotteswolds 

 to-day has been largely determined by the customs of our ancestors of thirteen 

 hundred years ago. This love of privacy was the origin and cause of another 

 marked feature of Cotteswold rural life. Many of the main roads in Gloucester- 

 shire have e.xisted from Roman or even British times, and were excellent 

 highways when the English settlement began. Yet, as anyone accustomed 

 to travel on our main roads must have noticed, the towns or villages along- 

 side the roads are few and far between. From Gloucester to Cirencester, the 

 Roman road, known as the Ermine Street, passes through only one village 

 (Birdli]}), and that is a modern outgrowth in a parish whose centre (Cowley) 

 is two miles away. The ancient road which connects the Ermine-street at 

 Birdlip with the Foss Way at Stow-on-the-Wold, except near Stow, also 

 passes through only one village (AndoversforcU, and that consists of a few 

 houses which have sprung up around a railway station in a corner of the 

 parish of Dowdeswell. The Foss Way, which runs through the county 

 from Bath to Moreton-in-Marsh, cuts through only one centre of life, the 

 town of Cirencester, and that because Cirencester was a town — was, in 

 fact a city, before the English came. Northleach itself, though close to 

 the Foss Way, has only one house on its edge — the abandoned county prison ! 



The thoroughness of the English conquest of the Cotteswolds is evidenced 

 by the names of places. Such well-known English affixes as " ham," " ton," 

 " worth," " ley," " field," are common throughout the Cotteswold area ; 

 and an analytical study of Cotteswold place-names reveals the striking fact 

 that nearly ninety per cent, of them are of distinctively English origin. A 

 few places take their names from rivers. Coin Rogers, Coin St. Dennis, 

 Coin St. Aldwyns obviously take their names from the river Coin ; North 

 and South Cerney are upon the banks of the Churn ; Windrush is simply 

 the name of the river which flows through it ; Northleach, Eastleach Turville, 

 Eastleach Martin and Southrop, which in early times was called Southleach, 

 are four parishes on the little river Leach. Why these names should be 

 exceptions to the general rule is uncertain. Two explanations may be 

 offered. One is that these places were occupied and named before the 

 English came, and the old names were adopted by the new settlers, just as 

 were Cirencester and Gloucester, and other towns whose history dates from 

 the Roman times. Or it may be that they were not a part of the land occupied 

 by the early English settlers, and received their names before occupation 



