318 Ahiiry. 



the signification of the words. For Aubery [^Ibflic] is a Christian 

 Name, as Godfrey or Rowland, &c., the / before a consonant is fre- 

 quently turned into « by the Northern people. But begging par- 



• Et facius cuiTis don for this digression to obviate the scornefull* smile, 

 ctanni.juven!sat.x. I come back to tke Etymologic. What bury [borough] 

 signifies, every one knows : but I was at a great losse for the mean- 



+ He .ras Govcr- ^^g ^f the first Syllable [««], till Mr. Johannes Heysigf 

 nor to the Lord (^ learned Swede) euformed me that Wyx" signifies 



Spar of Swedland, ^ . . ^ . ^ . 



who is of the blood amtiis, flnch(s, ftueutum, in lingua Suecica. An is not 

 ve°ry^ fine^Gentie- to be found in the Dutch, or Saxon Dictionairies : but 

 '"'^" he affirmes, that Au is always fluvitis, and that eau in 



French comes from An, or Aa"; as also ea, as in Eaton, which is a 

 name given to many waterish Townes, e.g. Eaton neer Windsor, 

 Water-Eaton in Oxfordshire, &c. So likewise ey and ay, as Ayton 

 in the North: Chelsey, Chertsey, &c. : so Breda, that is Broadwater. 

 At this Towne's end [sc. Aubury] by the church, is a watery place, 

 w''*' (I thinke) is the source of the Eiver Kynnet. 



" But after all that hath been said, I have a conceit, that Anbury 

 is a corruption of Alhury that is, Oldbury; or the Old Borough: 

 changeing as is aforesaid / before a consonant, into u: and well 

 agrees with the nature of this Old Place."^ 



* It is, upon the whole, not improbable that this last explanation is, after all, 

 the true one, and that the various names attached by corrupt pronunciation to 

 antiquities of a similar kind, as Aldborough, Albury, Arbury, Ai-bor, Aubury, 

 Abury, &c., are only so many ditt'erent provincial varieties of Old-bury (old camp, 

 burying-place, or town). But if in this particular case the letter v is really 

 and properly one of the letters of the name, there must have been some different 

 origin, and what that was it is not easy to say. In the Sarum Eegisters (as 

 printed by Sir Thomas Phillipps, ) it is constantly spelled Avebury, from a.d. 

 1297 downwards. In the Yalor Ecclesiasticus, it is printed, Abery, Aubery, 

 and Avebury. Bishop Tanner was for Afcbury, and rebukes the Editors of the 

 Old Monasticon for " Awebury." The last variety looks not unlike a corruption 

 of Avon: and in one of the Charters of Moukton Farley Priory dated, c. 1255, 

 and printed in the New Monasticon, Walter and Osbert de Avenebiri occur as 

 witnesses. But it is not clear that this alluded to the place in Wiltshire. It is 

 much more likely that it refers to Avenbury, near Bromyaid in Herefordshire, 

 as one of the early Bohuns, Earls of Hereford and founders of Monkton Farley 

 Priory (by whom the charter is granted), married a Maiid of "Avenbire," be- 

 lieved to have been of Co. Hereford : and the witnesses above-mentioned woidd 

 probably he her relatives. Had the river Avon taken its source £i"om, or flowed 



