Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 9.djvu/271

 ii s. ix. APRIL 4, i9i4.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

265

maps, down to the Ordnance Survey of 1828-31, were compiled."

In 'D.N.B.' Isaac Taylor is said to have sprung from a Worcester family, but there seems to be good reason for thinking that this was not so. Below the title of the map are these words :

" N.B., Estates are survey'd & Mapped in a very accurate fc neat manner at ye usual Prices. Also Maps Reduced and Drawn in the manner of Engraving-"

Isaac Taylor published the following county maps : Oxford (1750), Hereford (1754), Hants (1759), Dorset (1765), Worces- ter (1772), and Gloucester (1777).

With regard to the publication of the later maps, Mr. T. Chubb, of the Map Room at the British Museum, tells me :

" A strong inducement would be the reward of 100Z. offered by the Royal Society of Arts for the production of County Surveys, which offer Isaac Taylor was the first to accept for a map of Dorset- shire. Taylor's maps are all signed at Ross, and do not bear a publisher's name. The second edition of Herefordshire, however, bears the imprint of W. Faden, who was Thomas Jeft'ery's ' successor."

In Mr. Chubb's ' Descriptive Catalogue ' of Gloucestershire maps the following entry occurs under 1786 :

" Another copy of Isaac Taylor's map of 1777. A label is pasted under the dedication, containing the following : ' London. Printed for Wm. Faden. . . .Augt. 21st, 1786.' A copy of this is in the University Library, Cambridge.

William Faden published a second edition of Isaac Taylor's Map of Gloucestershire on 24 Nov., 1800, and another, on the reduced scale of 2 miles to an inch, on 1 Feb., 1800 It would seem, then, that Isaac Taylor was a surveyor who published maps of six dif ferent counties at Ross between 1750 anc 1777, but that his maps were republished by Wm. Faden in 1786, and it would seem also that this is all that can be gathered abou him with certainty. Yet his work was so excellent that it would be well if somethin more could be learned and placed on recorc concerning him. The surname Taylor is a common one in the Forest of Dean and thi Wye Valley. C. S. TAYLOR.

Banwell Vicarage, Somerset.

THE PLACE - NAME " BARNET." Prof Skeat in his ' Place -Names of Hertfordshire p. 60, contends that this word is of Frencl origin, and after a somewhat long articl leaves the meaning unsettled and th reader unsatisfied. It is true that the pla,c is not mentioned in Domesday Book, an< all the forms given by the Professor ar post-Conquest. Then he goes straight t the truth : " Anglo-Saxon boernet, a burnin

onflagration," and adds: "This is an un- uitable sense and does not apply.'' With reat respect to the memory of the learned nd lovable Professor, I submit it exactly pplies. The word is in Domesday Book

is Bernetebi, representing Barnetby, a village n N. Lincolnshire, four miles from Glanford-

Brigg. Surely this means " the village of he burning, or conflagration. ' ' In primitive imes, we must remember, the country wa& nostly wild land, heath, marsh, moor,.

woodland, or underwood, and as population ncreased new settlements and enclosures

were made in the wastes, and names given them. The mode of clearing was just

as it is now in new countries. In the United

States and Canada fire arid the axe play th& )rincipal part. A recent traveller in Siberia^

writes :

" It was a mild evening, and a beautiful sunset plashed the heavens with salmon and green.

As the after-glow faded into dusk we ran into a

zone of cleared forest where they were burning out- it umps, firing the ground in great ha If -moons.
 * hat cast a lurid glow across the sky for miles

around. When the walls of fire had swept on,. >ine stumps here and there remained flaring as though bands of linkmen were passing through

the hills." ' Through Siberia,' Wright and Digby~

New settlements or enclosures are a fertile source of place-names : hence our numerous which give their own interpretation. " The Biddings," "Ridding Lane," are common names (Mid. Eng. Ridding, Riddance), " a clearing " ; in Lancashire and Yorkshire the word is royd (from the Norse), and forma the terminal of hundreds of place-names. The Stockings," "Stocking Lane," are also common, and refer to the stocking-up of old stubs or roots ; " Stubby Lane,'* " Stubby Green," belong to the same order. Common names are " The Breaches, ' r "Breach Farm," "The Bratch," "The Braches," " Britch Lane," &c., meaning " a breaking up " (of the ground) ; " breach " and " break " have the same root, from Old English bryce and brcec. In Middle English many of these latter forms become bruche and," later, birch, so that such names as " Long Birch," " Strangelford Birch," " Gor- sty Birch," " The Birches," " Birchills," &c., have frequently no reference to the birch tree. This is especially the case in the neighbourhood of Brewood, in Staffordshire,, on the ancient confines of Cannock Forest> where enclosures were numerous in mediaeval times. W. H. DUIGNAN, F.S.A.
 * Newland," "Newton," " Newnham," &c. r

[This proof was returned to us by the son of the writer, whose death, we regret to say, took place on 27 March.]