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Moore, of Exeter Coll. Oxford, grandson of Col. Moore, above mentioned. Yours, &c. J. D. PARRY.

MR. URBAN,

East Winch Vicarage, near Lynn, Dec. 9. AT page 410 of your 12th Vol., New Series, is the following paragraph:

"Dr. Young, of Whitby, with some of his friends, whilst examining a subterranean Forest which was found during the excavation of a capacious bonding-pond at South Stockton, discovered one of the oaks to have been cut in two, which had evidently been done previous to its being covered by the earth. He supposes the forest may have been cut down by the Roman soldiers, as they were in the habit of laying timber on the low swampy grounds for the purpose of making roads. Be this as it may, it is certain the hand of man has been exerted on the timber, and it may form a fertile subject for the lover of ancient history and the geologist to speculate on."'*

The above passage brought to my mind the recollection of a fact that I now beg to communicate to you; and which, as it carries us back to a more remote period than that in which the Roman soldiers may be supposed to have been wood-cutters in our land, you may not think unworthy of insertion in your valuable Miscellany.

In ages very remote, the land along the coasts of Lincolnshire and Norfolk extended much further out than it does at present; and whole forests once existed in places which are now entirely occupied by the ocean.

In the Philosophical Transactions for the year 1799 is a very interesting account of these submarine forests, by Joseph Correa de Serra. This paper relates only to the Lincolnshire coast; but roots, trunks, and branches of trees are found to extend along the northern shore of Norfolk also, as far as from the Wash to Thornham, and perhaps further.

At low water these may be approached from the shore on foot; and about twelve years ago, accompanied by a friend, I walked to examine them. At about a mile from the high-water mark we arrived at the forest, where we found numberless large timber trees, trunks, and branches, but so soft that they might easily be pene

trated by the spade. They lie in a black mass of vegetable matter, which seems to be 'composed of the smaller branches, leaves, and plants of undergrowth, occupying altogether a space of five or six hundred acres.

But what I would particularly recommend to the notice of your antiquarian readers is, that in the prostrate trunk of one of these trees, imbedded about an inch and a half by its cutting edge, I found a British flint celt, which is now deposited in the Norwich Mu

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MR. URBAN,

Aug. 31. THE names of some places in this Island are very singular; appearing, on the face of them, to have been formed from familiar words of our present language; and so conveying the notion that such names, although they must be of modern date, comparatively, have reference to some fact, or legendary tradition, of very ancient times but such a reason for these names being not at all apparent, or probable, they have given rise to many unfounded, not to say ridiculous, tales and stories relating to such places.

This has arisen from the various people who have become the occupiers of this country, since the Britons, speaking a different language from them, and from each other. Such vernacular and homely names may, in most instances, it is thought, be traced to the British language, and may be considered as corruptions thereof. This has not been sufficiently regarded by our antiquaries; and consequently many of them has been led into absurd conjectures, and have been the means of sanctioning, if not of inventing, the many popular, but untrue accounts, that have been mixed up with the history of some places.

As an illustration of these observations, I shall advert to some places in this Island, remarkable for their depth and declivity, in the names of which

his Satanic majesty's appellation bears a conspicuous part, as if he had been concerned with them, in some inexplicable way, or had some property in them, viz. the Devil's Dike; the Devil's Punch-Bowl; the Devil's Arse-a-peak; the Devil's Den, &c. Now these names are nothing more, I confidently submit, than a corruption, as far as the word "Devil's," (thus put in the genitive case,) of DIPHWys, the British for a steep or precipice. And there are many similar words in that language to express depth, profundity, &c. (probably the parent of our word, deep.)

THE DEVIL'S DIKE, near Brighton, is well known as a deep cavity, steep and precipitous.* Another Devil's Dike, in Norfolk, is described in the Archæologia, vol. xxiii. p. 372.

THE DEVIL'S PUNCH BOWL, is on the Portsmouth road, near Hindhead (in Surrey, I believe); and is a place of the like character. The term bowl seems also of British origin, from PWLL or BWL, signifying a bason-like cavity in the ground. Punch is obviously a facetious addition of modern times.

THE DEVIL'S-ARSE-A-PEAK (to say the least, an indelicate, as well as an unmeaning name) is in Derbyshire, as is well known. Those who have not witnessed it, have, for the most part, read of it. The name seems to me compounded of the aforesaid word DIPHWYS, and of ARSWYD, the British for dread, terror, &c. So that the present homely though indecent name is a corruption of some British words, expressing the terrible and awful depth and steep descent of this celebrated place. The addition "a Peak," has probably reference to its situation near the lofty and precipitous Peak, (which in the British is written PIG;) or more likely it was intended to include that.

In addition, I shall add that some high ground, to the south of Dorking, is called Claygate Hill; on one de

See the legend connected with this, and the poetical version of it by the late William Hamper, esq. F.S.A. of Birmingham, in Gent. Mag. vol. lxxx. pt. i. p. 513. It is also observable that, in the British language, PWLL DIWAELOD, means a bottomless pit.

clivity of which is a large and deep pit, in which now grows underwood. It appears to have been dug out, i. e. formed artificially. CLADD, in the ancient British language, means a pit or digging. The common people, thereabouts, call this pit, THE DEVIL'S DEN. This is another proof of the etymology I am contending for. The word Den is, in all probability, a corruption of "Dell," a pit. So that Devil's Den (or rather the words from which the name arose) means nothing more than the steep, or deep pit.

It is but an act of justice to our ancestors, to rescue them from the imputation of superstition, which these mysterious names have led to their being charged with, and which has arisen merely from the accidental circumstance of the original names resembling in sound the present awful J. P.

ones.

Goodrich Court, MR. URBAN, Oct. 30. AMOST interesting and satisfactory communication was made to your Magazine of November 1840, displaying the usual accuracy and indefatigable research of your Correspondent J. G. N. In this he has proved that in the picture at Chiswick falsely attributed to Van Eyck, the portraits are not those of Lord and Lady Clifford, but Sir John and Lady Donne, of Kidwely, in the county of Caermarthen.

He shews how this curious picture may have come from the Clifford family into the possession of the Earl of Burlington; but adds, "from what cause the portraits assembled in this picture were ever ascribed to the Lord Clifford and his family,' it would be difficult to guess." Now, Sir, I happen to be at this time engaged in correcting the press for the publication of the Visitation of Wales, in the time of Elizabeth, by Lewys Dwnn (or Donne,) deputy herald for that purpose appointed.

This curious collection will make its

appearance under the patronage of the

"

Welsh MSS. Society," for whom I have undertaken the editorship. It contains a very ample pedigree of the Doune family, to whom the compiler was related. From this I find myself enabled to dissolve what has appeared

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to your Correspondent a mystery. The Sir Griffith Donne, who in the Gwrgant MS. in the College of Arms, is said "to have formed an alliance with the Hastings family, and to have left issue, though this marriage does not appear in the accounts of the house of Hastings," is here represented as married, but no other mention is made of the person, than that she was "the Lady of Tir mawr." But the offspring of this match is stated to have been Elizabeth, sole heiress. This lady married Thomas Hughes of Uxbridge, son of Dr. Hughes of Wales, and their issue were two sons and two daughters. The younger, Grisel,

married, 1st. Lord Abergavenny, and
2ndly, Christopher Clifford, brother
to the Earl of Cumberland. This, ex-
cepting the christian name of “ Chris-
topher," is confirmed by Vincent's
Baronagium, No. 20, pp. 15 and 278,
where it is stated that Edward Neville
d'nus de Abergavenny, obiit Ao. 31
Elizabethæ, leaving his widow Griselda,
daughter of Thomas Hughes de Ux-
bridge, who afterwards espoused
"Franciscus de Clifford, post mortem
fratris sui senioris, comitem fuit Cum-
briæ."

Trusting this short remark may be
deemed of use,
I remain,
Yours, &c. S. R. MEYRICK.

GORHAMBURY HOUSE, HERTFORDSHIRE.
(With a Plate.)

GORHAMBURY derived its name from the family of Robert de Gorham, who was elected Abbat of St. Alban's in 1151, and who alienated from the church this manor (previously called Westwick), in favour of his sècular relatives. It was re-united, by purchase, to the possessions of the abbey, in 1389.

The foundations of the monastic manor-house, including those of a large round tower, may still be traced in dry summers. It was situated in front of the modern house, lower down the hill, and commanding a good view of the wood.t

After the dissolution of Monasteries the manor was granted by the Crown to Ralph Rowlet, esq. afterwards knighted, and sold by his grandson,

Elaborate pedigrees of the Gorham family have been recently published in the Collectanea Topographica and Genealogica, vol. v. p. 189, vol. vii. p. 288, vol. viii. p. 92.

+ See a plan, showing the situations of the four successive mansions at Gorhambury, in "The History of Gorhambury," by the Hon. Charlotte Grimston: a volume privately printed in quarto, and remarkable for its being an autograph, multiplied by the process of lithography. It was produced about the year 1826. (See Martin's Catalogue of Privately Printed Books, p. 236.) From this cu rious and authentic volume our present article will be principally derived,

Ralph Maynard, esq. to Sir Nicholas
Bacon, the Lord Keeper.

Sir Nicholas Bacon commenced erecting a new mansion at Gorhambury on the 1st of March 1363. Among the papers of his son Anthony, in the library at Lambeth Palace, is one containing the following particulars:

"A Brief of the whole charges bestowed upoh the building of Gorhambury, between the years 1563 and the last day of September 1568, viz. by the space of five years and fourteen days:

£315 9 0

1563

1564

461 7 1

1565

177 67

1566

568 3 9

1567

171 8 8

1568

204 16 8

£1898 11 94]

[Total "Memorandum. There is not accounted for in this brief any Timber felled in the Lord Keeper's woods or otherwise; neither is there valued any freestone from the abbey of St. Alban's, lime, sand; nor the profits that might have accrued of burning and making of brick within the time mentioned."

Sir Nicholas Bacon's building consisted of a quadrangle of about seventy feet square, in the centre of which was the entrance, and on each side small turrets. The door of entry led through a cloister into a court, in which, facing the entrance, was a porch of Roman architecture, which still exists in ruin, and is represented in the accom

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