290 The Wiltshire Possessions of the Abbess of Shaftesbury. 



Bucticanlea being taken by himself. The charter is printed by Sir 

 R. C. Hoare in his account of the ' Hundred of Dun worth.' ^ A more 

 correct copy is furnished by Kemble in the * Codex Diplomaticus.' ^ 



The document in question is more than commonly obscure from 

 the circumstance, to which allusion has already been made, of all 

 the charters, &c,, in the Shaftesbury Chartulary having been copied 

 by a late scribe and in a slovenly manner. But though thus corrupt, 

 and referring to a period nearly 900 years ago, it is nevertheless 

 sufficiently distinct to enable one to form a tolerably correct idea 

 of the extent of the parish, even with the aid only of the Ordnance 

 Map. An inspection of the Parish Map was the means of identifying 

 several of the places named in the charter, and there is no doubt 

 that a thorough perambulation of the locality, especially if you 

 could get from the villagers the old names of places which have 

 been handed down to them from father to son for many centuries, 

 would enable you to recognise many more. 



The first place mentioned is * Cygel-marc, — evidently our present 

 ' Chilmark,' — the description commencing from the point where 

 Chilmark brook runs into the Nodder. This point can be observed 

 at a glance on the parish map, — it is close by Teffont Evias. The 

 boundary line proceeds by several places, the names of which we 

 can no longer recognise, till you arrive at the 'old ^cood ford,' a 

 spot, without doubt, close by what is now termed ' Ansty water,' 

 Several fields at no great distance from this spot are called in the 

 present Terrier ' Odd-ford,' and this would be only the way in which 

 a surveyor, who did not understand the Wiltshire dialect, would spell 

 what our countrymen would call ' ood-ford.' From the ' old wood 

 ford' the next point we reach is 'Nether-Head-Stock,' which here 

 undoubtedly means Lower Donhead, and as the meaning of ' heued 

 stoccas' (the form in which the word appears) is the ' head of the 

 wood,' the two compounds 'Donhead,' and ' Head Stock' might be 

 regarded as almost synonymous. In the charter there is a second 

 ' Head Stock ' mentioned, but in that case it alludes to the ' head ' 

 of what is now called ' Lady-c?02^rt,' so that we have abundant 



> Hundred of Dunworth, p. 236, ' Codex Diplom., No. 641. 



