222 PRE-SAXON CIVILIZATION IN DORSET. 



Keynston comes from cefn, a ridge or rock. Badbury, bad or 

 abad, was a Celtic habitation or town. Chaldon, celvandum, 

 a retreat or hiding place in the down. Pentridge is a wrinkled 

 hill, from Pen, a head, and Kridge, creased or crumpled. 

 Pensilwood, the wood of a height like a chimney (sel) or 

 smoke hole. Creech is old Welsh for a stack heap, or hill. 

 Shaftesbury, or Caer Pnlladour, meant the same in both 

 tongues the staff of a spear ; which might be derived from 

 its appearance, as it stands like a promontory or point above the 

 vale, on an almost perpendicular hill. Maiden Castle (mai 

 dunun) was well described as the Hill of Strength. 



The pleasant pastures of Purbeck, as distinct from the 

 heath lands, give its name, Porbeck. Tilly Whim caves, 

 Touten Vegn, describe themselves as holes in the rocks. 

 Durlstone is a perforated rock, and the Druid stones can 

 never be forgotten at Little Mayne (maen, a stone). Wcotton 

 Glanville is suggestive of the Blackmore forest (Coit. a 

 wood) in which it is situated. Evershot recalls the time 

 when wild boars roamed its woods. 



Pimperne is a puzzling name. It has been suggested 

 as being derived from Old Welsh Pimp, five, and Werne, a 

 meadow, or ern, a pledge. The parish in 1790 comprised 

 four arable common fields beside pasture, the Pimperne 

 Mead of thirty-five acres, some enclosures and coppices. 

 In Doomsday Book it is entered as Pimpre, the ' Pre ' being 

 apparently equivalent to the Latin Pro turn, French Pre, 

 a meadow. 



Pokeswell might be Puckswell, or Pixies well, for the 

 Celts made a special cult of holywells, believing them to have 

 the gift of healing. It is not an uncommon name, because 

 in the parish of Langton Matravers there is a farm called 

 Pucklake a place near Ilminster is named Puckiiigton 

 and in our younger days we were taught when gathering 

 flowers to leave " some for the Nixies and some for the Pixies." 



There are few Roman place names in the county. Those given 

 have generally a Celtic addition. Dorchester was another 

 lioinan camp by the water dwr, or the river Varia, Celtic 



