70 THE PROr,LEM OF LYNCHETS. 



desccnsum." Had the word h-nchet been in existence, here 

 would have been an occasion for its employment. But, after 

 it was once introduced, it rapidly superseded the older word, 

 which in this county is no longer to be met with, except in 

 topical nomenclature. There is a place called Linch by a steep 

 clifif on the Fleet near Wyke Regis, like the Lynch on the 

 Somerset coast, an East and West Linch by Corfe Castle, a 

 Lydlynch near Sturminster, and Sydeling, between Dorchester 

 and Cerne, used to be spelt Sedelinch. This last may be 

 compared with the " sidlingj'eg " in a Somerset charter, 

 A.D. 956, meaning " the road on the wide lynchet." 



Linch is to be found in Domesday Book, but not in relation 

 to Dorset. 



7. In approaching the Delimitation Charters,-'' it should be 

 premised that the boundaries there assigned usually follow pre- 

 existing and easily recognised features of the country. Streams, 

 highways, footpaths; " se hara stan," the hoary lichen-covered 

 stone ; " se ifihta sesc," the ivy-clad ash ; as well as barrows, 

 springs, chalk pits ; cliifs, combes, and hangers ; and the furrow 

 along the edge of arable fields. So a favourite formula is 

 "along the linch — to the linch's end or head." And we find 

 specific mention of the small, the short, and the little linch ; the 

 high and the steep linch; "stan hlinc" and " stenihte hlinc," 

 the stony lynchet; and " se hpita hlinc," where the white chalk, 

 somehow, was visible. Then there is the " wogan," " wohan," 

 or " won hlinc," bent or crooked ; and " se wearrihta hlinc," or 

 "se ruga hlinc," gnarled or rough ; and "se clofena hlinc," cleft 

 or broken. IMention, too, is made of " J^ridda hlinc," or the third 

 lynchet, and of "middcl hlinc." A dividing function may be 

 discerned in " se landscar hlinc," the "landscaru" being what- 

 ever separates one estate from another ; and in " maer hlinc " 



* These charters are best consulted iu Kcmble's Codex Diplomaticus iEvi 

 Saxonici, 6 vols., lS:J9-lStS, and in Birch's Cartularium Saxouicum, 3 vols., 

 1885-1893. 



