By the Rev. E. A Fuller. 



227 



or a butchery, or sewer whereby they abound." He suggests 

 another possible derivation from rateen the name of a woollen fabric, 

 Bury having- been a great cloth mart, though he seems to doubt whe- 

 ther such fabric were made so early as the fifteenth century : the will in 

 question bearing date A.D. 1439. If this is the only choice we 

 have we need not hesitate ; Rotten-re we of A.D. 1540 helping us, 

 when we remember Dandie Dinmont's account of how he entered 

 his terriers, " first wi' rottens — then wi' stots or weasels — and then 

 wi' the tods and brocks/'' the place in question moreover being by 

 the waterside. Of the St. John's-street which Rudder or his later 

 Editor mentions as appearing in a deed of 1509, I have found no 

 trace, nor can I suggest where it can have been except that it was 

 not Blackjack-street. According to other contemporary nomen- 

 clature I should have expected it to be near St. John's Hospital, 

 i.e., Spitalgate Lane, if I could assign another spot for Raton Rewe, 

 but this last is clearly connected with St. Lawrence Street, the 

 streets being taken in regular order, and the mention of the Abbot's 

 wall seeming to preclude Goosacre Lane. 



Spitalgate is an old name doubtless, but Rudder is mistaken in 

 saying that Spiringate is a corruption from it : t and r are not very 

 interchangeable letters ; the name is always written Spyring : what- 

 ever may be the origin of the old name of the tithing, lands are 

 described as in the Spyring field, campus de Spyring, and in the 

 lease by Henry VIII., to Roger Basinge the farms are described 

 as Spyringate or Spittle Grange, and the Almery Grange. The 

 two names in all probability have quite distinct etymologies. 



With regard to the White Way, it appears from an Inquisitio of 

 6 Ric. II, entered among the p.m., but really a.q.d., that Roger 

 Wyght was at that time lord of Wyggewould in right of his wife 

 Alice, and if there were no other evidence I should have been in- 

 clined to ascribe the name to some connection with this Roger, 

 but in deeds 150 years earlier I find Wiggehemeweie, Wyggehem- 

 eweye, Wyghemeweye,, and it is easy to understand how this 

 became in pronunciation White Way. It is also described :is the 

 road to Wynchecumbe, and a glance at the ordnance map will 

 show that the road over Cerney Downs was an important one, 



