Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/59

 10 s. x. JULY is, 1908.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

43-

and trees there growing, and ten foot in breadth and 150 Rods [825 yards, or nearly half a mile] in length of y e soil of y e said Park lying beyond y c said ditch, beginning from y e South highway leading to Kensington and crossing forwards towards y e North highway leading to Acton. And His Majesty doth hereby dispark the same." Docquets, Chas. II. 1662-'3, vol. xxi. No. 47.

The ditch, the subject of the grant and Letters Patent, thus described as overgrown with brushwood and bordered by trees, appears to have been ancient and important. We might imagine it to have been not only the demarcation between Hyde Park and the Finch property, but even the western limit of the manor,* were it not that the Abbey parish of St. Margaret still stretched a short distance westward. This piece of land (between the ditch and the Ken- sington boundary), in form quadrilateral, is not more than 350 yards wide on the average, but more than half a mile long between Kensington High Street on the south and the Uxbridge Road on the north. The area is about 67 acres; but the " quadrilateral " towards its northern end is crossed by an irregular parish boun- dary, which cuts off about 18 acres along the Uxbridge Road, 14 acres being in Pad- dington, and 4 in Kensington ; the gravel pits were formerly here. The remaining 49 acres or say in round numbers 50 acres contained the Finch Mansion, and appear to have constituted the Finch property at this place. The history of this land is vague, and it has even been suggested that the manor house of Neyte, the situation of which was doubtful, may have preceded on the same site the house of Finch, which became the nucleus of Kensington Palace. The conjecture was reasonable and pleasant. The 50 acres would have represented the small manor, and the Abbot in his lodge here at the western extremity of his estate would have looked over adjoining Hyde

division of the original great manor of Eia, as were also Neyte and Eybury) is considered to have had its western limit at the Westbourne stream, now merged in the Serpentine, and beyond Hyde was Knightsbridge. Thus Hyde Park, extending westward beyond Hyde Manor, was partly in Knightsbridge. And Knightsbridge (in the parish of St. Margaret, Westminster) adjoining on the north Westbourne (in the parish of Pad- dington), these two formed a later so-called " manor " of the Abbey, as that of " Knightsbridge with Westbourne," the fact of their union being evidence of their juxtaposition. Such appears to me the most probable solution of this part of the perplexing and variously stated problem of the Abbey manors. Davis in ' Memorials of Knights- bridge ' (p. 12) has it so.
 * Knightsbridge not Hyde. Hyde Manor (a

and his distant manors beyond, not requiring for his seclusion any special demesne or park pertaining to this house. But further study has shown me that Neyte lay else- where, and it is my hope to make that manor the subject of a future note. The 50 acres of St. Margaret's bordering on Kensington, and eventually the total 67 acres of th& " quadrilateral," were bought by King- William, and the purchase papers are much desired for our further information.

W. L. RUTTON.

(To be continued.)

VOWEL-SHORTENING IN ENGLISH.

IN my ' Primer of English Etymology ' I give the rule that " when the length of a word is augmented, a long vowel is very apt to be shortened by the accentual stress falling upon it." An easy example occurs in the case of such a word as the verb to daze. Here the a is certainly long, or, strictly speaking, is a diphthong. But if we add a tail to it, the derivative is dazzle, with a short a.

The point to which I would draw par- ticular attention is the extraordinary abund- ance of examples. We have quite a large number of monosyllables containing a long vowel, which are attended by related dis- syllables that contain a short one. As this is a point which I have never seen sufficiently illustrated, I venture to present some examples, the number of which can no doubt be increased. Surely the law ought to be better known than it is. It is in ignorance of this law that some people argue for pro- nouncing primer with the same i as in prime ; if they recognised that our language has phonetic laws, they would certainly say primmer. But most people know nothing of sound-laws, and jump at conclusions on insufficient grounds.

Examples : Bake, baxter ; ball (a dance), ballad ; ball (a sphere), ballot ; bar, barrier ; bate, batter ; bile, bilious ; blow, blossom ; bole, bulwark ; boom, bumpkin ; brake (a fern), bracken ; breech, breeches ; brief, brevity.

Cane, cannon ; car, carriage ; case (a circum- stance), casual; cave, cavity; child, children; clear, claret; coal, collier ; coal, collie (i.e., acoal-y dog) ; code, codicil; cone, conic; crane, cranberry; creed, credit ; croup, crupper.

Dame, damsel; daze, dazzle; deign, dignity; dine, dinner; dool (sorrow), dolour; doze, dizzy; duke, duchess.

Old, elder ; ere, early.

Feast, festive; file (a thin line), filament; fine (delicate), finish; flame, flambeau; float, flotsam