Calshot, the Cerdices-ora of the " Chronicle.'" 53 



ora, and on the same day defeated the natives. No site has given 

 rise to so much discussion as this Cerdices-ora. Mr. Thorpe 

 in one place says it is not known, whilst in another, by an 

 evident oversight, he fixes upon Charford.* Dr. Guest places 

 it at the mouth of the river Itchen,t whilst Mr. Pearson and 

 others have identified it with Yarmouth. J Now, I think there 

 can be little doubt, looking both at the etymology of the name 

 and the situation, that Calshot is the true place. The land 

 here runs out into the sea with no less than ten fathoms of 

 water close to it, so that large vessels can to this day lie along- 

 side the Castle. It is the first part, too, of the mainland which 

 can be reached, and on its north side offers a safe anchorage. 

 Besides, about four miles off stand some barrows, which, though 

 we may not be able to identify them as covering those slain in 

 the first battle which the West- Saxons fought, offer some 

 presumption in favour of that theory. In the very word 

 Calshot, and its intermediate forms of Caushot, Caldshore, and 



* Compare his edition of T7ie Chronicle, vol. ii. p. 13, with note 1 at 

 p. 4, vol. i., of Florence. 



t Early English Settlements in Great Britain — The Proceedings of the 

 ArchcEological Listitiite, the Salisbury volume, pp. 56-60. It is, of course, 

 not without much consideration that I presume to differ from Dr. Guest ; 

 but surely the passages quoted from Bede refer to nearly 200 years after 

 the arrival of Cerdic and his nephews, Stuf and Wihtgar, when their 

 descendants would have been sure to have crossed over, finding the east 

 side far richer than the cold, barren district where the New Forest after- 

 wards stood. 



J The Early and Middle Ages of England, p. 56, foot-note. I may, 

 perhaps, add, that Camden also placed it at Yarmouth ; Carte, at Charmouth, 



Dorsetshire ; and Milner, at Hengistbury Head. Gibson, with some 

 s^thers, in his edition of The Chronicle (under nominum locorum explicatio, 

 19, 20), alone seems to have fixed on this spot. Lappenburg, however, 

 says that the site is no longer known. England under (he Anglo-Saxon 

 Kings. Ed. Thorpe, p. 107. 



53 



