CHIPCHASE CASTLE. NOBTH TYNEDAEE. 297 



Cheap, a market ; Anglo-Saxon, ceapian, % to buy ; cypan, to sell ; 

 and cheap, price or sale, which occur in Cheapside and East- 

 Cheap, the old market-places of London, and in the numerous 

 Chipping s, scattered throughout England, denoting ancient 

 market-places and early seats of commercial activity. 



The second part of the name of Chipchase comes from the 

 Norman-French chasse ; French chasser, to hunt, signifying a 

 place of hunting, ground abounding in game, such as the various 

 species of deer, the wild boar, (once common in this district, to 

 judge from the local names of Swinburn, etc.,) bears, wolves, 

 and smaller objects of the chase. The " forest," like "William 

 the Conqueror's New Forest in Hampshire, seems to have been 

 the most extensive kind of hunting ground ; next to this came 

 the " Chase," like Hatfield Chase, in Yorkshire; then the 

 "Hunt," like Cheshunt, in Hertfordshire ; and last, and smallest 

 of all, the enclosed "Park." 



Thus the meaning of Chipchase is the "market"! within the 

 " Chase" or hunting-ground of t the Lords of Prudhoe, the great 

 family of the Umfrevilles, or Umframvilles who held it as a 

 detached manor of that important barony, when the light of 

 history first dawns upon Chipchase. The traditional site may 

 have been near the principal entrance to the Castle grounds, 

 below the Steward's or Close House, which is still called the 

 " China gate," from some popular reminiscence of the former 

 market and its wares. The village itself continued to be 

 inhabited, as I find from the parish registers, to nearly the end 

 of the last century ; and I have known an old parishioner whose 

 relations were born and lived there. Leland, in his " Itinerary," 

 writing about the middle of the sixteenth century, describes 



* In Norse names the forms are Cope and Roping (pronounced Chaping). Copenhagen, 

 the capital of Denmark, is the modern corrupt form learnt from the French, of the Danish 

 Riobenhavn, Haven of Commerce. Compare Bosworth's Anglo-Saxon and English Dic- 

 tionary, sub voce " Ceap." A " Chapman." A S. Ceapman, Swedish, Roepman, is a peddler 

 or merchant; see Jamieson's Scottish Dictionary, and Taylor's Words and Places, p. 373. 

 2nd Edit. 



t The owner of the soil, as lord of the market by royal grant or immemorial user, 

 levied a toll, by his officer, on every buyer, and for security contracts were made in his 

 presence. 



