Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/119

 10 s. XL JAN. so, 1909.J NOTES AND QUERIES.

As to the origin of the name itself, I do not think Bardsley can be right in identifying Gower with the common word gore, merely on the strength of a similarity of sound in modern pronunciation. For the poet himself made the name dissyllabic ; in one instance it is Gower, and in another Gower. It is more likely that the name was taken from that of the barony of Gower in Gla- morganshire ; and, if so, the word was rather Celtic than English. Spurrell gives the Welsh spelling as Gwyr, with a circum- flex over the w. This word is, in Welsh, an adjective, meaning " bent " ; hence crooked, sloping, inclined, and the like. It is the same as the Breton gwar, or goar, " bent," or crooked, which is monosyllabic ; cf. Breton goarek, a bow. The Old Irish form is fiar, crooked ; and the common Celtic type is weiros, bent, twisted, winding, cog- nate with E. wire and the Lat. uirice, " armlets " ; from the root WEI, to wind round, whence also our verb to wind.

I find a mention of the barony of Gower in Wales in ' Inquisitiones post Mortem,' i. 60, in 1275-6. WALTER W. SKEAT.

Gower is another form of gore, O.E. gara, & triangular piece (of land, &c.). H. P. L.

In the parish of Eastry is a small farm {consisting of a messuage and 21 acres) called Gore (locally pronounced Gower) which in the sixteenth century belonged to the Ower family (Shaw's ' Liber Eastriae,' p. 67). In 1799 this farm, forming part of the Statenborough estate, came into the possession of William Boys, the Sandwich historian, through his wife Jane Fuller <Hasted's ' History of Kent,' vol. iv. p. 222).

W. J. MERCER. Margate.

Hasted' s ' History of Kent,' vol. x. p. 100, gives Gore, not Gower. Besides Gore hamlet, the index gives Gore-end, Gore Farm, and Gore Street in the neighbourhood ; and at p. 308 states that there are memorials in Birchington Church to a family of Gore.

R. J. FYXMORE.

I do not know the hamlet to which your correspondent refers. The following may, however, in the absence of better authority, put him in the way to arrive at a proximate opinion as to the origin of the hamlet's place- name. Gower comprises a fairly large tract of country in Glamorganshire, and as this Gower is Welsh, it seems a little puzzling to understand the origin of the " Gower " in Kent.

The earliest form of the Gower I refer to is Gwyr. As I lived many years in Gower and its neighbourhood, my attention was naturally directed to the nomenclature of the district. The inhabitants of the eastern parts of the county, when speaking of Gower, make, or made, use of the term Obry-wyr, pronounced Obrowyer, which really means, it seems, " men of yonder land." Some of the mediaeval writers used Gohir, Guihir, and Guohir, which I understand to be the Latinized form of the Welsh Gwyr. Of course the present Gower is the English form.

IB. the Old Testament many instances of stones being set up to mark certain happen- ings, &c., are found, and there is a theory that Gower takes its name, in a similar manner, from the many stones or rude columns yet found there. A pitched stone of considerable size, when I last saw it, was lying opposite the gate of Llanrhidian Church. This stone had been removed from its original position upwards of sixty years ago. The speculation is that an ancient people, the Cymry, when settling in Gower, finding so many stone pillars, called the district Gwyr, or, as is stated, " Meini Gwyr " (the land of the stone men). Many learned archaeologists assign these stones to a period carrying us to prehistoric times.

Another theory with regard to this place- name has its origin in the Welsh adjective givyrdd (verdant) ; and again from gwyr, with the circumflex accent over w and y, meaning crooked, slanting, or bending, which can be applied to the peninsula. In the last, it is generally admitted, may be found, as in many other places, the origin of the name, from the configura- tion of the land.

The earliest mention of the Gower I have referred to is, I think, found in Cunedda, A.D. 340-89. In ' Charters granted to Swansea,' by G. Grant Francis, Esq. (not published), Appendix, p. 125, mention is made of one " Padrig ab Mawon of Gwyr." In 440 (' Liber Llandavensis ') it is recorded that the estates of Gower were given to the See of Llandaff and Bishop Oudoceus between 440 and 460. Elsewhere I find that Merchgum, on his daughter becoming a nun, gave to the bishop the churches of Llandaff, Bishopston, and Gowersland : " Medios terrae cum omni dignitate sua et libertate et communione tota regionis Guhiri in campis et in siluis."

ALFRED CHAS. JOXAS. Thornton Heath.