REPORTS OF MEETINGS FOR 1911 257 



assembled at St. Boswells station, patches of blue amid lowering 

 clouds betokened improvement, and by mid-day the face of 

 Nature was lit up with glorious sunshine. Three large brakes 

 supplied from the Railway Hotel conveyed a party of upwards 

 of forty members and guests through the village of St. Boswells 

 and beneath the North British Railway line, where turning 

 Westwards, they joined the road for Lilliesleaf, having the 

 lands of EUiston on the left. The greater portion of the road 

 was fringed with excellent timber, mostly hardwood, a tem- 

 porary saw-'mill in the neighbourhood affording presumable proof 

 of its having attained maturity. Passing through the richly 

 wooded grounds of Linthill, situated on the Ale Water, in 

 which a Spanish Chestnut (Castanea sativa) reported in 1877 

 as girthing 14ft. Gins, at 4ft. from the ground was found to 

 measure 16ft. at the same height, the members gained the 

 high road to Lilliesleaf, a thriving village on the South bank 

 of the Ale. Alighting at the Parish Church, they were met 



by the Rev. A. P. Sym, B.D., who read an 

 Lilliesleaf. interesting account of the neighbourhood and the 



scheme of improvement recently carried out upon 

 the Church. In the course of his remarks he said : — " Beautiful 

 as is the name of the parish, its derivation is uncertain ; but despite 

 some published statements it is clear that it has nothing to do 

 with either "lilies" or "leaves." I have gathered some six 

 and twenty forms of its spelling, which only by a long process 

 of evolution has attained its present lovely form. It is cer- 

 tainly derived from the word " cleve," for the name in old 

 documents is frequently written Lilles-cleve or Lilles-clif. The 

 suffix denotes a meadow, as is found in Cleveland and Cleve- 

 don in other parts of the country, as well as in Wycliffe, a 

 village in Yorkshire, one of whose inhabitants became famous 

 as "The morning star of the Reformation." So far as that 

 part of the name goes, therefore, it may be assigned to the 

 meadows and haughs which form the boundaries of the stream 

 on whose banks the village is situated. The former portion, 

 however, presents greater ditficulty. In many forms, a hyphen 

 divides the syllables ; and the question arises as to the " Lilly " 

 whose name is associated with the meadows. A solution has 

 occurred to me, which I submit for what it is worth. The wJiole 



