DOMESDAY SURVEY 



in question was that which diverged from the Watling Street at Stony 

 Stratford, passed through Northampton and Leicester to Nottingham, 

 and continued through Blyth and Doncaster to York and the north. 

 We get a definition of its course in Nottinghamshire in the above- 

 mentioned charter to Nottingham, for the burgesses are granted toll ' a 

 Duito ultra Rempeston usque ad aquam de Radefud in Nor.' Duito is 

 explained by Mr. Stevenson as a shortened form of conductum, and refers 

 to the brook which for some five miles forms the southern boundary of 

 Nottinghamshire, and is crossed by the above road at Rempstone on its 

 entrance into the county. 1 Similarly the road crosses the ' water at 

 Radford,' or river Ryton, at Blyth, a fact which helps to explain Roger de 

 Buslis' grant of toll, fair, and market there. 3 The other road from the 

 south to York ran from London through Huntingdon to Lincoln, and 

 then, crossing the Trent at Littleborough, passed across the north-eastern 

 corner of Nottinghamshire, entering Yorkshire at Bawtry, and probably 

 joining the road from Leicester and Nottingham at the same place. 3 



A slight ambiguity attends the word fossa in the Domesday passage 

 quoted above. Mr. Ballard takes it to mean ' the city ditch'; 4 but there 

 does not appear to be any evidence in support of this. By Mr. Green 

 and his followers it is taken in close connexion with via versus Eboracum, 

 and translated ' the ditch and road that runs to York.' b But this 

 reading does not seem very natural, and in the translation below the 

 word is taken to mean ' the Foss Way.' This great road, running 

 from Lincoln to Leicester and the south-west, passed through the three 

 southern wapentakes of Nottinghamshire, and for 1 2 miles formed part 

 of the high road from Newark to Nottingham. The Lincoln Cathedral 

 charters show its position as a ' royal road.' In one of them the bishop 

 is allowed to divert the regia strata^ which goes through Newark, whither 

 he will. 6 Mr. Stevenson has recently suggested that the words ' In 

 Snotingeham, aqua Trente .... custodiuntur ' in the above Domesday 

 passage may indicate ' some control over the county ' as belonging to the 

 burgesses of Nottingham. 7 This may no doubt be so, but it is also 

 possible that the word scire was omitted after ' Snotingeham,' and that 

 the passage is merely indicating the manner in which the main lines of 

 communication running through the county were safeguarded. 



On the whole the local geography of Nottinghamshire has exhibited 

 somewhat unusual stability. If we combine Domesday with the twelfth- 

 century chartularies which we possess there will be few hamlets in the 

 county which we cannot trace back to a period beyond 1 1 60, while a 

 still smaller number of the place-names mentioned in the survey have 

 passed altogether out of remembrance. In 1086 the county seems to 



1 The copy of the charter given by Dr. Stubbs in his Select Charters, p. 167, reads ' usque ad aquam 

 de Radefud in Norhantesire,' but this is merely a wrong expansion of the Nor' of the original. 



' ' Theloneum et passagium de Radefud usque in Thornewat' . . . feriam et merchatum in eadem 

 villa.' Man. Angl. iv, 623. 



3 It was by this latter road that Harold marched south in 1066, and William in 1068. 



4 The Domesday Boroughs, 85. 5 Conquest of England (ed. 1883), 439. 



6 Man. Angl. viii, 1273. ' English Historical Review, April, 1905, p. 349. 



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