168 



The Names of Places in Wiltshire. 



portion is described in the charter as an estate of five hides 

 " juxta dirivatis fluentium successibus ubi vulgares prisco usu 

 mobilique relatione nomen imposuerunt Use-/' that is, stripped 

 of the verbiage with which the old conveyancer thought fit 

 to encumber the grant, " near the point at which several 

 tributary streams meet in a larger stream which the common 

 people call by the old name Use" One of the points of 

 boundary is " Use-stsede/' that is, " the place by the river 

 (Use)." 



Wassern. This name, though now lost, is that of an old manor 

 mentioned in the Hundred Rolls of Henry the Third, and 

 granted, under that name, (33 Henry VIII.,) to Sir 

 "W. Herbert. It is the Waisel of Domesday. 1 It included 

 much of what is now contained in the park at Wilton. 

 The Domesday name might mean " little stream/'' the other 

 form may imply the u dwelling by the stream/'' 



Ax-ford. A portion of the parish of Ramsbury. The name 

 signifies the " ford of the river/'' 



Oxen-legh. On the river Avon, at a boundary-point between the 

 parishes of Bradford-on-Avon and Broughton Gifford. In 

 an ancient charter, of the date A.D. 1001, it is spelt Acces- 

 leghe? The change of the former portion of the word 

 successively into Cb-legh, and Oxen-legh, seems natural 

 enough. There can be little doubt that its original form was 

 a corruption of the word which we are considering, and 

 that its real meaning is " the legh by the river/'' or perhaps, 

 as we might say, " water-meadow/'' 



Gauze Brook. So spelt in Andrews' and Dury's map, and flowing 

 close by Hullavington. The word is certainly another 

 form of this root, which assumes so many shapes. There 

 is just to the north-east of Swindon a stream called Long 

 Gush. In the names (r6><s-ford, on the Cherwell in Oxford- 

 shire ; and in GW-port in Hampshire, you have the same word 

 slightly modified. I should not be surprised if the name 



1 Jones' Domesday for "Wilts, p. 49. 

 2 Cod. Dipl., 706. 



