Corruptions in Local Names. 



73 



: is met with three limes in my own neighbourhood ; first as the name 

 of a large tithing, where, from an ancient spelling" Wlf-leg, it is 



I clearly the memorial of Ulf, an owner in the time of the Confessor, 

 — next as the name of a street in Bradford-on-Avon, where it is a 

 corruption of Toole//, itself a contraction of St. Olave, to whom a 

 chapel was dedicated in the street — just as Tooley Street, in South- 

 wark, is so called from the church of St. Olave which is situated in 

 it, — and lastly as the name of a small parish connected with that 

 of Bathwick, where, if we may draw conclusions from an old spelling 

 U") lege, the name is certainly to be sought for in a source perfectly 

 distinct From the other two. 1 



(c) Then of course there are cases here, as with Celtic Names, in 

 which the original has been so altered as to defy the happiest conjecture. 

 Among such apparently hopeless corruptions — stereotyped I fear 

 in many instances by those who compiled the Ordnance Map for 

 Wilts, and who would have been better friends to Philologists if 

 they had taken with them some some one acquainted with the dialect 

 of the county — is what now appears as Chick Changles wood, in 

 the parish of East Overton. It is now some years ago, when, in 

 company with the late lamented Dr. Thurnam, I went over the 

 bounds of this parish, and we were both convinced that it was un- 

 doubtedly the Scythangra spoken of in the charter relating to it 

 (Cod. Dipl., 1120), a name that might fairly be Englished as Shot- 

 hanger, and which means literally the "shooting" or sloping "hanger," 

 i.e., wood, on the declivity of a hill. 



38, Such names as we are now about to consider are generally 

 composed of two members, the one, which for the most part forms 

 the termination, being a generic term, applicable to a number of 

 places of a similar character, and denoting the nature of the settlement 

 or neighbourhood to be described — the other a specific term, 



1 The Domesday Name looks as though it were connected with the Anglo- 

 Saxon wileg (= willow). There is however a charter relating to Chaklcombe, 

 the neighbouring parish, (Cod. Dipl. iii., 455,) in which we meet with this 

 passage, "Of Ceolles-cumbe est . . . to •Skm-weaUon" i.e., " From Chelscombe 

 east ... to the wells " (=springs) ; — if this be meant for Woolley, and it 

 certainly is a very probable conjecture, that name really, like Wellow, is der 

 rived from the Anglo-Saxon toeall (or wille) a " spring (or well) of water." 



VOL. XV. NO. XLIII. L 



