264 



The Names of Places in Wiltshire. 



of the Anglo-Saxon Nate-tun, i.e., the village of the Nat-e. 

 And then, on the south-eastern border of the Clarendon 

 Forest, not far from Salisbury, was a place, according* to Sir 

 R. C. Hoare, called Net- ley coppice. 



29. Oaiie. Near Wilcot, on the borders of the parish and hundred. 

 There is a parish of the same name at the western extremity 

 of Somerset, the Are of Domesday. 1 Leo 2 thinks it is the 

 Gaelic or, oir, which signifies brink, edge, or boundary. The 

 expression y or or, the name by the way of a farm in Merion- 

 ethshire, means " the boundaries/'' This word often occurs 

 as the termination of names, e.g., Readan-ora (= Radnor), 

 Cumen-ora (== Cumnor). See Cod. Dipl. 214, 1106. 



Pewsham. So called from a small stream, formerly, if not now, 

 designated the Pewe, which rises at Lockswell and flows into 

 the Avon near Lackham. 



Piggledean. The name of a farm in East Overton, not far from 

 Avebury. In the charter relating to this neighbourhood we 

 have the name Pgttel-dene, 2, which seems clearly to refer to 

 this spot. Indeed it was formerly called Pittledean. Webster 

 includes pightel among obsolete words, and Halliwell gives 

 it also among primitive terms, and it is said to mean a " small 

 parcel of land enclosed with a hedge." Hartshorne 4 thinks 

 it is connected with the Welsh and Cornish pitw (= small). 

 He mentions a place called Picclescot, near Shrewsbury, 

 which he considers to mean the " dwelling in the pightel' 9 

 That the word is Celtic seems pretty evident. In Ducange 

 we meet with the Latinised forms piciellum and joightellum, 

 explained by him to mean <( exigua fundi portio sepimento 

 conclusa."" [There is the name Fiddle Farm, on the ord- 

 nance map, just south-west of Cricklade ; is this another 

 corruption of this old Celtic term ?] 



1 Collinson's Somerset, ii., 33. 

 3 Anglo-Saxon Nomenclature, p. 91. 

 3 Cod. Dipl., 1020. 

 4 Salopia Antiq., p. 259. 



