THE COUNTRY & ITS NAMES 



the water or the banks are red, the farm near 

 the church, the coppice or enclosure where the 

 bull is kept, and we can all of us probably 

 think of a great many others, hardly as yet to 

 be called real names, but which serve very well 

 to distinguish the places. Now if we look at 

 the names all up and down a map of England, 

 we shall soon see that many of them have been 

 given in much the same way as those we have 

 written down above, and do tell us something 

 about the place or its history. 



Let us consider a few of these. How many 

 places for instance can we think of, or find, with 

 names ending in ' ford ' ? There are Bradford, 

 Oxford, Bedford, Stamford, and many others. 

 In Cambridgeshire alone, not more than five 

 miles away from each other, we find Shelford, 

 Stapleford, Pampisford, Whittlesford, which 

 point out to us all the different places where 

 the roads cross the river, and where people have 

 gathered themselves together to live. Moreover, 

 as these places, where the river is shallow enough 

 to ford or walk through, are so near together, we 

 may fairly assume that the river is not very big 

 or deep. There would probably not be many 

 fords on a big river ; we should expect to hear 

 of ferries, boats, and bridges instead. And so 

 we do. We find Queensferry, Rockferry, Earls- 

 ferry, Boat of Garten, Cambridge, Staleybridge, 

 Bridgenorth, and hosts of other similar names 

 scattered over the country. Then there are 



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