Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/73

 10 s. xii. JULY 17, 1909.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

57

England,' pp. 175-6 ; Planche, ' Conqueror and his Companions/ ii. 180). Walter also obtained part of the fief of his wife's uncle Robert " Dispensator " " Robertus Dispen- sator f rater Ursonis de Abbetot," as he is styled in a charter of the Empress Maud to William de Beauchamp, son of Walter ('Geoffrey de Mandeville,' pp. 313-14). Robert's fief was, however, divided between the Beauchamps and the Marmions ('Feudal England,' pp. 176, 194-5, 214). This led Mr. Round to suggest that Urse d'Abetot may have had another daughter, married to Robert Marmion (ibid., p. 176).

" Urso " and " Ursus " are, of course, only Latinized forms of Urse, who, it may be added, was never " Earl of Worcester."

I believe that no connexion has been proved between the above Walter de Beauchamp and Hugh de Beauchamp, founder of the Bedford line ( ' Conqueror and his Companions,' ii. 180).

G. H. WHITE.

Lowestoft.

I am aware of the history of Holt Castle under the Beauchamps, Bromleys, and Lord Montforts ; I want to ascertain the missing link between the death of John Wysham (c. 1480) and the purchase by Sir Thomas Bromley (c. 1550). In 1500 the estate seems to have belonged to Sir John Bourne, who erected considerable domestic buildings within the castle walls. Who was this gentleman, how did he get the castle, and why did he sell it so soon ? TERTIUS.

GROOM'S COFFEE-HOUSE (10 S. xi. 145). According to The Daily Telegraph of 12 Feb- rurary last, Groom's coffee and chop house, next door to "The Rainbow," Fleet Street, was sold at the Auction Mart on 1 1 February for 1,600Z. With it went the special recipe for the making of coffee, a secret, or supposed to be one. The lease from Christ's Hospital had seven years to run, at a ground rent of 521. 10s. per annum, with sundry small additional payments for insurance and in lieu of land tax. The net profits for the past few years were said to approximate to 500Z. per annum. The Groom family set up their coffee house in 1700.

ROBERT PIEBPOINT.

BEEZLEY (10 S. ix. 269, 338 ; xi. 475). I thank MR. PIERPOINT for his reference Bacon's Cycling Map locates the Sussex border about 2 miles east of Petersfield and also the village of Rogate, which is undoubtedly in Sussex, about 4 miles eas of that place. Bevan's ' Tourist's Guide t<

lampshire ' gives the distance between

etersfield and Rogate as 4 miles. I

lave on more than one occasion walked the

distance in an hour and ten minutes ;

herefore I should say that 8J miles from

D etersfield to the Sussex border is incorrect.

F. K. P.

CARSTARES OR CARSTAIRS (10 S. xi. 290,

597, 497). The Rev. James B. Johnstone

in his ' Place-Names of Scotland,' 1892, has

ome interesting observations on this name.

He says :

" The joy of the palaeontologist when he cracks pen a limestone nodule arid finds therein a magnificent Productus, every curve and line of the hell perfect, is hardly greater than the satisfaction f the historical philologist when he first discovers that a puzzling and prosaic name like Carstairs originally was ' Casteltarres ' (sic, c. 1170), Terras >eing a familiar Scotch surname to this day. Even yet all will not be well unless the student also mows that the oldest usage of the word ' castle ' in English was as a translation of the Vulgate's castel- um, where castellum means always, not a fortress, jut a village. Thus Carstairs, if dressed in Saxon garb, would be Tarreston, in Norman garb Tarres- ville." Introduction, p. xv.

"Carstairs (Lanarkshire). In 1170, Casteltarres ; _n 1592, Carstairs. O.E. castel (or G. caisteal) Terras, ' T.'s castle or fort ' ; but see Castlebay. Terras is still a So. surname ; and cf. ' Tarris- holme,' 1376, in Liddesdale." Ibid., p. 59.

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

" AT THE BACK OF BEYOND " (10 S. xi. 510).

The * N.E.D.' defines this as " a humorous phrase for ever so far off, some very out-of- bhe-way place." The first instance given of its use is from Scott's ' Antiquary ' (1816) : "You whirled them to the back ^ of beyont to look at the auld Roman camp."

De Quincey describes the phrase as " a smart American adage."

WALTER B. KINGSFORD.

United University Club.

This adverbial expression means "at a great distance." In Scotland it is synony- mous with "fer outby." The term occurs in the following ludicrous phrase, " At the back-o' -beyont, where the grey mare fouled the fiddler," i.e., threw him off in the dirt. Jamieson says that in Roxburgh, when a person is asked where he got such a thing, and does not choose to tell, he answers that he got it at the " back-o'-beyont." It is used satirically, when one pretends not to believe the account given by another of the place where he met with anything.

TOM JONES.

[MR. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL also refers to ' The Antiquary.']