On Rottenrow and Rattanraw, by John Hilson. 445 



The mistake the southern antiquarians have made, has been in 

 fancying that the Rattan Raw was peculiar to their end of the 

 island. We will give proofs that the name has had a well re- 

 cognised purpose all over the island, suggesting the likelihood 

 that it applied to the old pre-Roman routes which must have 

 existed. It has become effaced from recollection in many parts, 

 but it is continually turning up in old deeds and descriptions of 

 boundaries of property. As an interesting relic of the past it 

 could have been wished that in every instance where it had been 

 used in a district it had been put down on the maps of the Sappers 

 and Miners, just as the routes of the old Roman ways have been 

 preserved in these. In addition to its being found in Middlesex, 

 the Rattanraw shews itself in Yorkshire, at Derby, and at Hind- 

 ley in Lancashire. In Tate's " History of Alnwick" mention of 

 it is made as lying near to that town ; also as being found at 

 Bamburgh, at Durham, at Langley in the Cheviots, in Tyneclale, 

 at Elsdon. It had existed near to Blenkinsop Hall, near Halt- 

 whistle, from an old reference to it in Hodgson's Northumber- 

 land. Near Otterbourne Rattenraw is a familiar name. Ou the 

 side of the Dunian, on Hundalee farm, near to Jedburgh, " the 

 Rattanraw" is an everyday phrase. Then we have it in one of 

 the back streets of Lauder, in Berwickshire, a town of great 

 antiquity with ancient British works in the neighbourhood, bear- 

 ing names of the same British speech with Rattanraw. Going 

 further north, though not to be found in Edinburgh, we find it 

 prevailed in Leith, where the common vennel was commonly 

 called Ratoune Raw, though forgotten to modern speech there. 

 Then it shews itself as a well-known part near to the High 

 Street, or Hie Gate, of Glasgow. We select one instance in 

 which it is referred to in an old deed where William de Bonkel, 

 Burgess, in 1381 sold certain lands within the Burgh, "in vico qui 

 vocatur Raton Raw." Again, it is seen in Dunfermline. In 

 Forfarshire it is to be found in the name of the Rattan raw burn, 

 which flows into the Elliot water ; and in Aberdeen it is a familiar 

 name to old residents. 



Again we have Rottenrow in the parish of Oraigie, in the 

 county of Ayr, and we find it presents itself near to the town of 

 Montrose. 



We suspect that the English provincial topographical name of 

 Royd, so widely found in Yorkshire, is nothing but the survivor 



