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As the result of my observations I found that in high floods as much as 1400 tons of sediment were carried down the Onny (a very small stream), in suspension in 24 hours, and that the denudation arising from annual wear and tear would amount to one inch in 400 years, over the whole basin that supplies it with water. May I add that while the hypothesis of blown sand, referred to by Mr. Lea, may well apply to the New Red Sandstone, and account for the false bedding so characteristic of it, it can hardly do so to the Old Red, with its numerous beds of conglomerate filled with large water-worn pebbles. Besides, the salt deposits connected with the former are absent in the latter.

PLACE NAMES OF THE NEIGHBOURHOOD.

By the Rev. PHIPPS ONSLOW, Rector of Upper Sapey.

YOUR President has honoured me by a request to put together a few notes on the localities of your place of meeting.

If you will, I shall gladly tell you all I know, and, if you will have patience with the guesses of an unscientific old man, a good deal that I think may reasonably be conjectured, always remembering that these notes are put together with an eye to brevity rather than completeness. First about the Southstone. Of course Southstone Rock is as clearly a reduplication as Branksea Island. You will note that it probably gave its name to the parish in which it is situate. Stan-ford-the ford of the Stane, while the little farmhouse you see below you is "The Sandwiches," i.e., the Stane-Wyk, the cottage of the Stane. Probably, the Stane was a well-known place of worship in pre-historic times. It was almost inevitable that it should be so. Its peculiar formation, its situation, looking straight to the east through a cleft in a low range of hills, so admirably adapted to the Sun worship which seems to be at the root of the great majority of ancient faiths, could scarcely fail to attract the attention of the priesthood, while the fact that it was afterwards occupied, either as a hermitage, or by a cluster of cenobites, or as a cell from a larger monastery, points the same way. It is wellknown that the early Christians habitually sought to invest with the sanctity of a higher faith places which already had previous ideas of sanctity connected with them. The ruins of the little chapel were in existence not many years ago.

I may note that the next house to "The Sandwiches" is named "The Furnace," clearly a relic of the times when the oak that clothed these hills was utilized for smelting purposes. It may tend in the same direction to note that a deep pit hollow on your right is called "Hell Hole," clearly, I think, "Hela's Hole." But why the Southstone? South of what? The only guess I can make is to note that about two miles due west, in my own parish, is a place called "Whistlewood," probably a corruption of West Hill Wood, or Wode. Possibly the two may have been tribal boundaries, for which their situation seems adapted. I may note that I find in a scientific description of the scene in Worcestershire, over which we are looking, that there is a basaltic dyke rising abruptly from the eastern side of the Old Red Sandstone range, in the parish of Shelsley Beauchamp, entirely unconnected with any of the same formation, and with no rock of the same formation nearer than the Clee Hills. That dyke is nearly opposite, among a clump of trees which you may see, but, unfortunately for exploration, the river lies between.

The neighbourhood is rather rich in examples of place-names. The two hills opposite, "The Berrow" and "Woodbury," are evidently from the word meaning a "mound," whether artificial as a burying place, or natural as a hill. But Tenbury, not far off, must be from buhr, a borough, probably the town on the

Teme.

While the neighbouring East-Ham, the rich valley meadow land, is joined by Hanley, evidently, as a glance at the locality will show, bits of grazing pasture among the woods. Next to Hanley comes an equally expressive word, Tenbury Broad Heath. Clearly so named, not from its product, but from its situation, the Broad Height, equivalent to what we call " a table-land." This is peculiarly expressive of the place. You mount up a steep hill to it from at least three sides, and then are on a more or less level space, reaching by a neck with a moderate fall to Bromyard. It must have been a grand promontory, between the valleys of the Teme and the Frome, in pre-historic times.

Then comes my own parish, Upper Sapey, about which the most interesting thing is the name. Is it a place-name, or derived from ownership? The first patrons of whom I have a note were Sir Richard de Petronilla de Sapey, and John de Sapey. From them it passed to the Bishop of Hereford, from him to Roger Mortimer, but then again to a John Sapey, Kt. In a country where De La Haye is known as Dallow, it would be easy to corrupt such a name as, for instance, St. Pre, into Sapey. But I am inclined to think that it is a place-name; scarcely, perhaps, derived from the brook. As far as I can find, in the few dictionaries I possess, the word Sapey signifies a moist place-the moisture rising and falling like sap-rather than an actual brook. Therefore I make this guess. There was, undoubtedly, an old pack road running through it. It must pretty certainly have crossed the Teme at Eastham Ford, and, I think, has left its traces as if it ran in a straight line towards Whitbourne. If so, it must have run, after climbing to Tenbury Broad Height, along the shallow trough, or depression, which marks the course of the brook, so that the track must have been perpetually liable to inundation. Anyone who is familiar with the locality will see how the traveller, mounting the Tenbury Broad Height, would have come to a track for some miles, intermittently boggy and inundated, quite sufficiently so at least to impress itself on him and give a name to the locality. In this case, the locality gave the name to the brook, rather than the brook to the locality. Probably Sapey was a more important place when the knightly family of the De Sapeys resided there. There are traces of fish pools near the Church, and the ground round the Rectory shows traces, in the abundance of fragments of hewn stone that turn up by digging, that there was once a mansion of considerable size upon the site.

I may add that you will pass a very good specimen of a portion of an old Roman camp on your way to Clifton, and that I believe I know of a part of another. Also, if Mr. Lea has not noticed it, there is little doubt that the "Leopard's bane," Doronicum Pardalianches, grows, or used to grow, on the banks of the Teme just below the Rock. Miss Hill, who gave me the plant, brought it, I am nearly sure, into the Shelsley Garden from the river bank.

NOTES ON THE PARISH OF EDVIN (NOT EDWIN)

RALPH.

By JAMES NOTT, author of " 'History of the Church and Monastery of Moche Malverne."

AT Domesday survey the parish in question bore the name of "Gedefin." This afterwards became transformed into "Yedefin." It is easy to see how Yedefin might become "Edvin," or "Yedfin," as it is still vulgarly pronounced in the locality. The "Testa de Nevil Survey," compiled near the close of the reign of Edward II., has the following entry: "Rāds de Yedefin tenet in Yedefin et Buterl' de veti feoff feodū unius militis de Ep° Hereford! Sed nesciunt de quo idem Epis, tenet feodu illud in Capite" (quoted from Townsend's history of Leominster, page 9). This "Rāds de Yedefin" was a juror of the Leominster Court. Freely translated, the extract means that Ralph Yedefin held Yedefin and Butterley by an ancient feofment of feudal service of one Knight to the Bishop of Hereford, but that they did not know of what tenure the Bishop acquired that feudal right. "Gede" and "Yede" are Saxon terms of like signification, meaning to go. "Fin" is also of Saxon origin, whence we get the words "fine," "finery," etc.

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This clearly shows that there is no authority for the modern term of 'Edwin," attempted, with some success, recently to be foisted upon us. Remove not our ancient landmarks!

Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club.

LADIES' DAY-FRIDAY, JULY 29TH, 1892.

Rouse from thy slumber, pleasure calls, arise!
Come to the proof; with us the breeze inhale.
Renounce despair, and come to Severn's vale,
And where the Cotswold Hills are stretch'd along,
Seek our green dell, as yet unknown to song:
Start hence with us, and trace, with raptured eye,
The wild meanderings of the beauteous Wye.

The Banks of the Wye.-BLOOMFIELD.

In reply, a large company came with lady visitors; it was a subject for congratulation that horses and carriage conveyance were not required! The resources of the Great Western Railway were equal to the occasion; their carriages conveyed the party from Hereford through Ross to Grange Court, thence skirting for a distance of from ten to fifteen miles the right bank of the river Severn, here presenting an expanse of water in some places more than a mile in width, for, fortunately, it was high water, and the river Severn washed here and there the very base of the railway embankment, until, after it had been hidden from view for a few miles by the grounds of Sedbury Park, extending towards Beachley Point, the river Wye was crossed over Brunel's strange bridge, and the company was safely landed on the platform at Chepstow.

And shall we e'er forget the day

When first we hail'd, and moor'd beside
Rock-founded Chepstow's mouldering pride?

Where that strange bridge, light, trembling, high,

Strides like a spider o'er the Wye;

When, for the joys the morn had giv'n,

Our thankful hearts were raised to Heaven?

Never-that moment shall be dear,

While hills can charm, or sunbeams cheer."

and if there was ever any regret mingled with our

"Spirits high,

Sound health, bright hopes, and cloudless sky,"

it was for those staying at home who failed to share with us the beauties of nature, here so lavish in her charms of wild forest scenery 'twixt the Severn and the Wye, huge rocks, channel, rivers, hills, valleys, and green meadows, plains, heights, and abysses, so agreeably blended that one would need to travel far to find their counterpart.

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