54 The Neiv Forest : its History and its Scenery. 



Cauldsliore,* 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. 



Fi-om 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 

 (^Statc 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, 

 No. 43, f. 52. Aug. 27th, 1567.) I give these examples to show the 

 niunber 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 instance in the word Hagthorneslad (from the 

 Old-English " hagafiorn," 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." 



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

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

 Creek. 



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



