78 The Names of Places in Wiltshire. 



is now the largest pasture-ground in Quarendon, in the 

 county of Bucks, known by the name of Bery-field. And 

 those meads (called i?m£-meadows) have been interpreted 

 demesne or manor meadows, yet were they truly any flat or 

 open meadow, that lay adjoining to any vill or farm/'' See 

 also Kenneths Paroch. Antiq. Gloss., sub voce Beria. 



42. Stdc, Stow. These two words, though distinct, are placed 

 together because they have much the same meaning, viz., 

 " place " or " habitation." Of the latter Florence of Worcester 

 explains the signification in the words : " Sanctaa Mariae 

 Stou Anglice, Latine Sanctse Maria? locus appellator/' Mon. 

 H. B., 609. The former is the very frequent termination 

 stoke or stock, as in Jj&vQi-stock, formerly Jj&ver-stoke. It is 

 frequently also found as a simple name. One of the ti things 

 of Bradford-on-Avon is called Stoke. In the Shaston 

 Chartulary Stoke, and in Domesday Stoche, are the names 

 respectively for Beeching-stoke and Braden-stoke. From 

 the way in which it is often used it would seem sometimes to 

 denote a small out-lying portion of some larger estate. 



Leah. This assumes the form of ley or legh. It is defined 

 in a charter (Cod. Dipl., 190) as equivalent to campus 

 ( = field) : thus we have " campus armentorum, id est hrrSa 

 leah." Kemble thinks that Witena-leah (Cod. Dipl., 588), 

 which was hy Maddingley, near Cambridge, may be so called 

 from a meeting of the " Witan," having been held there. 

 He further gives it as his opinion that the root of this word, 

 still common in English poetry, is licgan, ( = tolie), and 

 that in all probability it originally denoted meadows lying 

 fallow after a crop. It has also been suggested that from 

 the way in which this word is used in the Saxon Chronicle 

 it may have been the old Gothic word used for the waste or 

 march which, according to Caesar, always surrounded the 

 territory of a German tribe, De Bell. Gall., iv., 3. We have 

 the word Leigh in its simple form frequently in Wilts as the 

 name— of a tithing of Bradford-on-Avon — of a portion of the 

 parish of Westbury — and of a place close by Malmesbury. 



