8 



History of the 



If I may be permitted to offer a further suggestion — accepting 

 the signification of bay in this connexion to be red, and cop to mean 

 hill, the term may have been used metaphorically to indicate the 

 large abundance of red deer frequenting the hillside, making it in 

 appearance a bay cop, or red hill. Mr. Wilkinson suggests " Back- 

 coppice," the back clearing on the sloping sides of the valley, 

 which is not very satisfactory ; and " Bay-copse," with reference 

 to the colour of the native herbage. In support of the latter, I 

 have often been struck with the red appearance which the uncul- 

 tivated moorlands around Bacup present in certain seasons of the 

 year. Mr. Henry Cunliffe suggested that the name was not 

 originally given to a hamlet, but rather to a locality, to whose 

 direct approach, in the primitive state of the Fflrest, Coupe 

 Valley would be the via media. Back Coupe, therefore, in Mr. 

 Cunliffe's opinion, seems to be a more reasonable form of the 

 original than any other that have been suggested. There is also 

 Back Cowm within a couple of miles of Coupe, which bears the 

 same relation geographically to Cowm as Bacup does to Coupe, (g). 

 On the other hand. Dr. March asserts that Coupe has nothing to 

 do with Bacup, and believes the latter to be either the Anglo-Sa.xon 

 bajc-cop or back-hope. He prefers the latter, and would class it 

 with Widdup, Stirrup, Harrop, but the oldest spelling yet obtained, 

 Bakcop, drives him to the former, {h.) 



The derivation of the other place-names, Newchurch, ^\'ater- 

 foot, and Crawshawbooth, is obvious enough. 



(k) Manchester City News, Notes and Queries, vol. vi., pp 178, 194. 

 (b) Ibid., p 184. See also East Lancashire Nomenclature, p. 18. 



