Miscellaneous Words. 



£71 



the Roman road from Old Sarum to Silchester, and imme- 

 diately below the fortress on Quarly Hill, lies a wide tract 

 of country called the Wallop fields, it is not improbable 

 that here was fought the battle commemorated in this frag- 

 ment." There are in that same neighbourhood three villages, 

 (which, though locally situated in Hampshire, are close to 

 the borders of Wiltshire,) bearing respectively the names of 

 Upper, Middle, and Lower Wallop, which are probably the 

 memorials of sad intestine struggles that wasted the strength 

 of our British forefathers, and ultimately gave a victory, 

 which otherwise would have been hard to win, to the united 

 bands of the Saxon invaders. Compare the name Welp- 

 ley, also close to the border of the county, the former part of 

 which may perchance be a contracted form of this same word. 

 Walkers Hill. Near Alton Priors. Just below the hill is an old 

 British road, or trackway, described in a charter relating to 

 that parish as weala-wege. The peasants still call the hill 

 Wale -way Kill, and Andrews and Dury in their map, though 

 they call it Walker's Hill, have underneath it the word 

 Walk-way. No doubt the origin of the present name is from 

 the old weala-ivege (that is the Welsh-way}) the ordinary 

 name for British roads. It means simply Welsh-way -MIL 

 It is no bad example of the manner in which names in the 

 course of centuries are tortured into singularly strange and 

 perplexing forms. See Domesdaj^ for Wilts, Introd. p. xxvii. 

 Wash-Pool. "1 The former is by Lidiard Millicent, the latter 



first portion of each word is the ancient word wish, or wisg, 

 which signifies water, and is found in so many forms. See 

 above under § 10. 

 34. Weavern (Mill). This is situated on what is now called the 

 Box Brook but is termed in an ancient charter, relating 

 to Bathford, the Wafer. Cod. Dip. 403. The river Weaver 

 in Cheshire bears the same name still. Near Bathford 

 the name is lost but an estate by which the Box Brook 

 flows is called War-high and in the Court Rolls of that 



name of a mill by Somerford Keynes. The 



