Names from those of ancient Owners or Occupiers. 



89 



Frisic personal names, which without doubt serve to interpret many 

 local names in Wilts. 



An example or two shall be given, first of all, from some of the 

 Anglo-Saxon charters. 



There is a place in All Cannings which is now called St. Anne's 

 Hill, but, as it has been shown in the pages of this Magazine, 

 (vol. xi., p. 9,) it is really a memorial of an ancient owner of the 

 name of Anne, the occurrence of such names as these — Anan stdn 

 ( = Anne's stone) Anne's thorn — Anne's crundell — in the charter of 

 Stanton Berners, the immediately adjoining parish, clearly proving 

 it. 1 Again, in the charter relating to Dauntsey, we have named 

 among the points of boundary, Strenges buryeles ( = Streng's burial- 

 place) , a name now only to be recognized in Stranger's Farm. 2 So 

 in the Hyde Chartulary, in the land-limits of Collingbourn Kingston, 

 we have Guthredes-berg ( = Guthred's barrow), a name now changed 

 into Godsbury. 3 



Of those, for the interpretation of which we may look to Domesday 

 Book, an account has already been given in this Magazine. 4 Two 

 may be referred to by way of illustration. The place now called 

 Fittleton is in Domesday (p. 113) called Viteletoe , 5 and the owner 

 in the days of the Confessor was one Vitel, and it is no stretch of 

 imagination to believe that from this early owner, or some namesake 



1 See Cod. Dipl. 483. We have similar instances of this tendency to see 

 memorials of Saints in local names in designations given to other parishes in 

 Wilts. Stanton Bebners has been transformed into Stanton St. Bernard, 

 whilst Stratford Tony, so called from Alice de Toni, Countess of Warwick, 

 has been gravely intrepreted as Stratford St. Anthony. In like manner 

 Martin, near Bedwyn, supposed to be called from an old chapel presumably 

 dedicated to St. Martin, is simply mcer-tun (=boundary village), and was 

 formally spelt Marion or Merton. In the Inq. p.m. 17 Edw. I, the name occurs 

 as Mar-thorn, as though it were so called from some boundary thorn planted 

 there. Anyhow the name has nothing to do with any mediaeval Saint. 



2 Cod. Dipl. 263. 

 3 Hyde Chartulary, (Rolls Series) p. 107. 

 4 Wilts Magazine, xiii., 42. 



5 In a charter relating to Enford, an immediately adjoining parish, we have a 

 boundary -point described as " Fitelan slades crundel" i.e., the " crundel by 

 FiteFt slade." Cod. Dipl. 1110. 



VOL. XV. — NO. XLIII. M 



