338 



A Sketch of the Parish of Yatesbury. 



" yate/' 1 is commonly applied in villages which never had walls, 

 the street and village green — all the space on which people are free 

 to go — being comprehended in the term town-gate from gyate. In 

 the wide upland pastures of these counties the rights of individual 

 proprietors are assigned as so many " cafctlegaits " or "gates," i.e., 

 licence for so many to go (and feed) . And so in Yorkshire " sheep- 

 g-ates " signify the right to turn sheep on to the moors, and these 

 are let in specified numbers with each farm. 2 But again gate, as 

 the name of a street, is very often found in the old towns of Scotland 

 and North of England which never had walls ; for example Penrith, 

 in Cumberland, which had its Castlegate, or street leading to the 

 castle; its Sandgate, leading to the fell; its Middlegate and Borough- 

 gate, streets in the heart of the town. 3 Bipon again, with its Cow- 

 gate, or Coltsgate, its Skellgate, and so forth, though it was an 

 unwalled town. 4 Shall I add that "to gang one's own gate/'' or 

 the line, "I gaed a waeu gate yestreen/'' are well-known Scotch 

 uses of this meaning of the word, which in England is usually 

 written "gait," as by Shakspeare ? Again our early Beformers 

 speak of "Pilgrimage gate-going/ 3 that is, "going by the road" : 5 

 while in 1576, the question is put by the Primate, whether the 

 parson, vicar, &c, in the days of Bogation — commonly called the 

 gang-days — walk the accustomed bounds. 6 



If then Yate or Gate, with the meaning of " approach to " or 

 " passage towards," be thought the true origin of the name of our 

 village, the enquiry naturally arises to what place does such passage 

 point ? and here I can have no hesitation in answering, most un- 

 doubtedly to Abury, the greatest British Temple in these islands, a 



1 Magazine, vol. vi., p. 78. Gate-posts are known in "Westmoreland as yat- 

 stoops. See Journal of Archseological Institute, vol. xviii., pp. 27 — 30. 

 2 Zoologist for 1879, p. 355. 

 3 Rev. Mackenzie Walcott. 

 4 Journal of Archaeological Institute, vol. xxxii., p. 401. 

 5 Coverdale, ii., 271. Bradford, i., 280; ii., 293. 

 6 Cardwell, Doc. Ann. 1407 and 1572. Ib. 372. See Journal of Archaeol. 

 Institute, vol. xix., pp. 54, 57, 60, on local names in Gloucestershire, where " Yate " 

 is given in Domesday as " Giete." 



