The New Forest : its History and its Scene n/. 



Cauldshore,* we may, without difficulty, recognize a corruption 

 of the original Cerdices-ora of the Chronicle and Florence. 

 The word is formed like the names of various places close by, 

 such as Needsore (the under-shore) and Stansore Point.f But 

 going farther back, we come much nearer to its original form 

 in the old Forest perambulation made in the eighth year of 

 Edward I., where it is spelt Kalkesore. | As then, Charford, 

 on the north-east borders of the New Forest, is the represen- 

 tative of Cerdices-ford, where Cerdic's last victory was gained 

 over Ambrosius ; so here, I think, at the south-west, near Kal- 

 kesore, now Calshot, was his first achieved. 



From this point the scenery completely changes. Instead of 

 lanes and cultivated fields, the shingly beach of the Solent, 

 covered in places to the water's edge with woods, sweeps away to 



* In a letter of Southampton's to Cromwell, 17th September, 1539 

 {State Papers, vol. i. p. 617), it is called Calsherdes ; whilst in another 

 letter of his, also to Cromwell (Ellis's Letters, second series, vol. ii. p. 87), 

 he writes Calshorispoynte. Leland, in his Itinerary (Ed. Hearne, second 

 edition, vol. iii., p. 94, f. 78), speaks of both " Cauldshore " and " Caldshore 

 Castelle;" and again (p. 93, f. 77), calls it Cawshot, as it is also spelt in 

 Baptista Boazio's Map of the Isle of Wight, 1591; whilst in the State 

 papers of Elizabeth we find Calshord. (Record Office. Domestic Series, 

 Xo. 43, f. 52. Aug. 27th, 1567.) I give these examples to show the 

 number of variations through which the name has passed. No form is 

 too grotesque for a corruption to assume. How names become cor- 

 rupted, let me give an example in the word Hagthorneslad (from the 

 Old-English "haga)>orn," a hawthorn), as it is written in the perambula- 

 tion of the Forest in the twenty-ninth year of Edward I, which in 

 Charles II.'s time is spelt Haythorneslade, thus losing its whole signifi- 

 cance, although to this day the word " hag " is used in the Forest for 

 a " haw," or " berry." 



f The simple termination " ore " " ora," and not " oar," as spelt in the 

 Ordnance Map, may be found within a stone's throw of Calshot, in Ore 

 Creek. 



J, See previously, chapter iv. p. 40, foot-note. 

 54 



