236 



A Sketch of the History of Hill BeverilL 



1. — Derivation of the Name. 

 The place is mentioned in Domesday as Devrel, but none of the 

 oiglit or nine places of that name there mentioned are distinguished 

 by any additional title. There seems, however, no reason to doubt 

 the conclusions at which Hoare arrives in identifying these places. 

 But what is the derivation of the name? A brief discussion is 

 necessary. Is it possible that in the names Kingston Deverill, 

 Monkton Deverill, Brixton Deverill, and Hill Deverill we have names 

 similar to Upton Scudamore, and Holme Lacey ; that is, the old 

 English name with that of the Norman owner added ? Now, in 

 Domesday, one Devrel is held by Brictric ; this is rightly identified by 

 Hoare with Brixton Deverill; another is held by the Abbey of 

 Grlastonbury : this is Monkton Deverill, says Hoare, rightly. The 

 name Longbridge Deverill is due to the causeway made by the 

 Abbey of Grlastonbury over a small marshy plain through which the 

 river flows. There remains Sill Deverill. Now, the name is con- 

 stantly written Hulle, or Hull. Was there a family of this name ? 

 probably not , as Hoare argues. Nightingale — ( Ch urch Plate of Wilts, ' 

 p. 85) — hastily assumes the contrary. Possibly it refers to the hill 

 — Bidcombe Hill — which is partly in the parish, and is one of the - 

 most conspicuous hills in the neighbourhood. Hull seems merely 

 the dialectical form of Hill, as mill, pill, are still, in the Deverill 

 valley, pronounced mull, pull. What then is Deverill ? A mass of 

 authorities is collected in Daniell {History of Warminster, pp. 15 

 — 18.) Can we accept the following judgments?: — " Deverill is 

 the stream which gives name to the villages " (Hoare) : " the 

 Deverill is so called because it dives underground" (Camden, 

 Drayton, Aubrey, Selden, Britton) : " it is derived from the Celtic 

 Defer, which means simply 4 a stream ' (Daniell, rightly rejecting 

 the second derivation) . Mr. Daniell does not explain the end of 

 the word ; but it might be a compound of Defer and the Gaelic all, 

 meaning white, a word which Isaac Taylor {Names and Places, p. 143) 

 traces in many river-names. On this theory Deverill would mean 

 just " chalk- stream " : but Canon Jones {Wilts Arch. Mag., xiv., 

 163), regards " el " as a diminutive suffix. The name Mioheldever, 

 in Hants, may be compared, and an obvious parallel is provided 



