Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/374

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

[12 8.1. MAT 6, 1916.

Bailey took part in several of Mr. Hardy s plays, including the performance of ' TheMellstock Quire in London. Deceased was a shoemaker by trade. In the olden days no country dance was complete without ' Fiddler Bailey.' "

PENRY LEWIS. Quisisana, Walton-by-Clevedon, Somerset.

(gmrws,

WE must request correspondents desiring in- formation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that answers may be sent to them direct.

HORN CROSS CLOSE. Do any readers of C N. & Q.' know the word "horn cross" as applied to a close of land, and with special reference to ecclesiastical boundaries ? In the parish of Romsey in Hampshire, about two miles and a half from the Abbey Church and old nunnery, are two pieces of ground so named. Both, before the Reformation, belonged to the nunnery, and both are situated upon rising ground, within a mile of each other, with the " Tadburn Lake " running in the valley below.

Asked the origin of this word, without any of the foregoing information, a learned friend replied :

" Horn Cross means the cross marking a corner of a boundary, as opposed to a cross in a line. The word ' horn ' is pure Anglo-Saxon for corner, and the term Horn Cross was popular with our early ecclesiastics because, in the Hebrew Bible, the Hebrew word for ' horn ' was used for a corner of a boundary. In Derbyshire such crosses are some- times called ' chairs,' e.g., ' the Abbot's Chair,' which is merely a modern corruption of the Anglo- Saxon word cdrre, a corner."

In the case of the horn cross closes at Halterworth and Woodley, we may safely take it that they at one time marked the boundaries of the nunnery lands. I do not say when because, although the word is Saxon, I think it also continued into mediaeval times. The purpose of the crosses was to mark the line of the ancient ecclesi- astical parish boundaries. The crosses that I have seen were from three to five feet long by four by three. Hampshire is, of course, not a stone country ; nevertheless, I am not at all sure that a search might not find the socket stones of some of the crosses.

At Croyland, in Lincolnshire, in the year 1389, the King ordered a commission and all parties to meet at the stone cross upon the Briggedyke to determine the "metes and boundaries " of the Abbey lands. They began at a place called Kenulph's Stone, in which place a certain cross of stone had been

erected by Abbot Kenulph, A.D. 716, and built as one of the ancient "metes." The- head of this cross had been broken and destroyed, but the foundation stone was still lying there undisturbed. In view of this it was thought proper that two crosses one of wood and one of stone^ should be erected on the spot. They went on about one mile to the north, and decided that a " cross should there be erected as one of the metes " ; then on to a place named Oggot, known as one of the metes, and it was ordered to erect a cross there of stone or wood. And so on until the said perambulation being completed, and new

crosses and new landmarks being established

The same authority adds :

"It is most likely that the crosses at Halter* worth and Woodley near Romsey marked the boundaries of King Edgar's charter of extension. But remember that a horn cross could only be at the corner of the boundaries."

King Edward the Elder is supposed to have founded Romsey Abbey in 907, and in 966 King Edgar " renewed the privileges of the nunnery," and granted them an extension of land in Romsey Extra. The charter is still preserved among the Saxon* charters. F. H. S.

Highwood.

OYSTER TABLES. In Hutchins's ' History of Dorsetshire,' vol. ii. p. 63, is an account of a Mr. Henry Hastings, one of the Keepers of the New Forest, who lived in the times of King James and Charles I. This gentleman r the second son of the Earl of Huntingdon,, was conspicuous a,s a sportsman, and,. inheriting the estate of Woodlands in Dorsetshire from his mother, used to resides in his lodge in the New Forest during the- hunting season. The account of his mode- of life in his lodge is very curious, sur- rounded as he was with all the implements and animals of the chase. There is a note in. this account of his having an " oister table, which was in constant use twice a day all the year round, for he never failed to eat oisters both at dinner and supper, with which the neighbouring town of Pool supplied him. William Gilpin, in his ' Remarks on Forest Scenery,' 1791, vol. ii. p. 22, gives a full description from Hutchins's history of this; " memorable sportsman."

The only time that I have met with such a table was in the Elizabethan house of a fine old sportsman, and there it was in us& immediately after the shooting days through- out the season. In description this was a plain deal round table at which six or eight " guns " stood. At the centre was a well,.