TIDESWELL AND TIDESLOW. 63 



Hobbes, as well as that by Cotton, the volume of water yielded 

 by the well at Barmoor Clough is now much less than formerly. 

 As far as I have been able to learn, the ancient and current 

 tradition that a well, yet existing at Tideswell, formerly 

 possessed tidal or intermitting properties, which gave the name 

 to the place, has never been called in question until the 

 appearance of an article by Mr. S. O. Addy, entitled " Tides- 

 well and Tideslow," that was published in Notes and Queries 

 of October 31st, 1903. In this, without making any reference 

 to the old tradition, he advocated the philological origin of these 

 place-names. In his opinion, the prefix Tides represents a 

 personal name, Tidy and the affix well or wall " has nothing to 

 do with a brook or spring of water," but is based on the Old 

 Norse vollr, with " some such meaning as farm or enclosure " 

 (9th xij., 341). In evidence of this he lays great stress on the 

 circumstance that wall is so frequently found as a suffix to 

 place-names, and " seems in many cases ... to be ... a 

 field or paddock." He cites " Tiddeswall and Bradwall," noted 

 in Speed's map of 1610, as examples; but had he examined 

 the alphabetical list on the back of that map, he would have 

 found these places named as " Tideswell " and " Bradwell " 

 (10th j. 92). Sir Henry Bemrose has kindly furnished me with 

 a long list of variations in the manner of spelling the name, 

 taken from early records, parish registers, maps, books, etc., 

 extending from the thirteenth to the nineteenth century, and 

 showing that in the thirteenth the word almost invariably ends 

 in well, and in this respect is similar to the " Tidesuuelle " of 

 the Domesday Book. In the seventeenth, wall was a common 

 termination, but from the latter part of the eighteenth there 

 has been a general reversion to the original well. The varia- 

 tions for the most part were probably due to the carelessness 

 of map-makers, and especially to their practice of copying the 

 place-names from the works of their predecessors, without any 

 enquiry as to their correctness. " Tiddeswall " appears in 

 SaxtoiVs map of 1579, and the spelling remained unchanged 

 in all maps up to the middle of the next century. Moreover, 



