Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/47

 10 s. XL JAX. 9, 1909.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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their four outside slabs sawn off, but instead of sufficient wood being removed to render them a true square, a portion of the original tree is seen at each corner. That is waney timber.

A waney plank or board has a natural splay upon one or both edges, hence it is wider on one face than upon the other. ' ; Plank " and " board " are not synony- mous terms. To be correctly defined, the former must be over If in. thick, and not less than 10 in. wide. A " board " is smaller less than 2 in. thick, and more than 5 in. wide. HARRY HEJIS.

When a timber intended to be square is sawn out from a round log that is too small, the result is a timber with a wane at each corner. Engineers specify, for instance, that railway sleepers must be perfectly square, except a wane of one inch at the two corners of one of the broad sides.

L. L. K.

'The word will be found in Cassell's ' Encyclopaedic Dictionary.' The date of this volume is 1889. Q. V.

[Other correspondents also thanked for replies.]

BANDY LEG WALK (10 S. x. 390, 438). The following instance is earlier than those given at the second reference :

' Bandy leg walk, in Maid lane, Southwork, near Gravel lane." 'A jNew View of London,' 1708 (by Hatton), p. 4.

In the same book (p. 34) is the following :

" Gravel lane in Southwork, betn the Upper ground (near the Falcon Stairs) Nly,and Dirty lane by St. George's fields Sly, and from P. C. [St. Paul's Cathedral) Sd, 800 Yds.'"

In Mason and Payne's reprint of a map called ' A Survey of London, made in the Year 1745,' Bandy Leg Walk extends further south than does the present Guilford Street, i.e., as far as Mint Street.

Is the suggestion too fanciful that Bandy Leg Lane was so called because it and that part of Gravel Lane south of Maid Lane (Maiden Lane in the 1745 map) are shaped like a pair of bandy legs, or that Bandy Leg Lane alone took its name from its bent shape ? At their north ends they are about 165 yards apart ; at Duke Street (now, I think, Union Street) about 350 ; and at their south ends they approach each other pretty closely, their curves being about equal. ROBERT

Strype's edition of Stow's ' Survey,' vol. ii. . 28 (6th ed.), under the heading of t. Saviour's, South wark, describes Maiden

Lane as beginning at Deadman's Place, and running westward into Gravel Lane, which begins at the Falcon and runs " northwards " (rectiiis southward) into St. George's Fields. In this Maiden Lane, it goes on to state, is Fountain Alley, falling into Castle Street ; and " more towards Gravel-lane is Bandy- leg-walk, a large Thoroughfare into the Park amongst Gardens, passing through Queen-street into Bennet's-rents."

If I am not mistaken, this Walk is also described in a' little volume in the Grenville Library at the B.M. (No. 15,947) entitled ' A New View of London ; or, An Ample Account of that City,' printed for R. Chis- well and others in 1703.

ETHEL LEGA-WEEKES.

In ' Catholic London a Century Ago,' by Canon Bernard Ward (1905), this thorough- fare is thus referred to :

" This mission [St. George's Fields] was first begun in 1798, in the room of a house in an alley close to the Borough known by the curious name of Bandy Leg Walk, where Little Guilford Street now is ; this was commonly known as the Borough Chapel." P. 110.

FREDERICK T. HIBGAME.

This street is mentioned as one of twenty- nine principal thoroughfares contained in Bridge Ward Without, in Don ^ Manoel Gonzales's account of London in his ' Voyage to Great Britain,' and first printed in the Harleian collection in 1745. The account seems mainly to relate to a period before 1724. Stoney Street, Deadman's Place, Gravel Lane, Dirty Lane, Crucifix Lane, Five-Foot Lane, and Long Lane are some of the other streets mentioned.

W. P. D. S.

SHOREDITCH FAMILY (10 S. x. 369, 455). Some useful matter anent this old Middlesex family may be found in vol. i. of the Calen- dar of Husting Wills,' and also in the several volumes of Letter-Books, edited by Dr. Sharpe, and published by the Corporation of London. W. D. PINK.

THE GUARD ALOFT (10 S. x. 487). It is a pleasure to have the opportunity of supple- menting ST. S WITHIN' s note concerning the discomforts and hardships suffered by the guards of passenger trains sixty years ago. Those men were originally perched outside a quota of carriages on every train, in order to assist in keeping a look-out, and to apply the hand-brakes if anything went wrong, either on their own responsibility, or on receiving instructions, conveyed by a code