210 Marly Annals of Trowbridge. 



different state of things to what we see now. Thus the name Stud- 

 ley, or as it was formerly written, Stod-leah, means the open pasture- 

 land on which horses grazed, from the Anglo-Saxon stod, the origin of 

 our words steed and stud as applied to horses. Pole-barn, the name 

 given now to a lane just where Trowbridge and Steeple Ashton 

 parishes have their border-line close to the stream, is most probably 

 a corruption of the word pol-bearo, not unfrequently met with in 

 charters, which signifies a " woody plot by a stream," or it may be 

 in some cases what we term a " water-meadow/'' Goose-acre, if 

 the former part be not a corruption of gars (= grass), or an equiva- 

 lent to our modern gorse, may be derived from the ancient word for 

 ' ' water/'' which, as we have seen in a previous paper in this Magazine, 1 

 assumes so many forms and amongst them Gos (as in Gos-^oxt), 

 and so imply simply the "acre by the river" Staverton was 

 originally Stan-ford-tun, that is, the village by the " stone 33 (or 

 paved) "ford." 



Trowbridge is said by Camden to be situated on the river Were. 

 Modern authorities and guide books call the river the Biss. It is 

 not often that seemingly conflicting statements are both right, but 

 it really is so to a great extent in the present case. The fact is 

 that there are two streams, the one rising near Bratton, which (after 

 flowing through North Bradley), enters the parish at its south- 

 east corner and forms for some three quarters of a mile the paro- 

 chial boundary ; — the other rising somewhere below South wick, en- 

 tering the parish at its south western extremity, and forming for 

 some three miles the boundary between Trowbridge and Bradford- 

 on-Avon, on the west. The former of these streams flows through 

 the town, and they unite their waters at Trowle Bridge, a spot not 

 far from what is now called Cock-hill farm. At Lady-Down this 

 stream flows into the Avon. 



The former of these streams, including the portion of the river 

 from this point of junction to the Avon, would seem more properly 

 to be called the Biss. A field at Lady-Down is still called " Biss- 

 mouth" meadow, and no less than 850 years ago this part of the 



1 Wilts Arch. Mag., xiv., 168. 



