Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/148

 118 NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s.ix. AUG. 6,1921. Some interesting information as to the Assize of Bread will be found in the transla- ! tion of the ' Liber Albus,' p. 302 et seq. Reference might also be made to Ashley's ; ' Economic History,' p. 187 et seq. WM. SELF-WEEKS. Westwood, Clitheroe. CHEWAR (12 S. ix. 50, 96). The supposed origin of this word was described by the Rev. T. Cockram, head master of the Royal Latin School, Buckingham, on p. 85 of i ' Historical Buckingham,' by J. T. Harrison, j 1909. As his letter is a very interesting! but not a lengthy one, I will give it in full. He says : It will be in the recollection of many of your readers that some years ago, when the Ordnance Survey people were making the necessary measurement for the large map of Buckingham/ they were considerably exercised about the proper spelling of the word " chewar," which they found applied by the inhabitants to the alley between Mr. C. A. Bennett's house and the Bucks and Oxon Bank. Several of the best informed and oldest residents were asked to give | their opinions as to the correct spelling of this; strange name, and the form which received the greatest amount of support was finally adopted j and in due course permanently recorded in iron, upon the walls ! It would appear that after all the popular j verdict was an erroneous one. The most recently I issued part of Murray's new English dictionary, | published at the Clarendon Press, includes the | word Chare, which is evidently identical with our old friend Chewar. It is curious that this spelling does not occur amongst the forms of the word collected by the Philological Society, which are Chihera, Chere, Chare, fihoyer, and Chair. Sir James Murray's definition of Chare is " a local name for a narrow alley or lane." The earliest spelling which has been discovered is " cherhera " in the thirteenth century, in the documents of William de Glanville, in Surtees's ' History of Durham.' One of the extracts is from the London Gazette -of 1707: "A large dwelling house in the Broad Chair in Newcastle- upon-Tyne " will be sold. In Tennant's ' Tour of Scotland,' 1790, occurs : " The lower Streets and Chares, or Alleys, are extremely narrow." It would be interesting to find out if the local pronunciation, which settled the spelling of the Buckingham alley, can be supported by any papers or documents in the possession of your readers. L. H. CHAMBERS. Bedford. A CURIOSITY OF ENDEAVOUR (12 S. ix. 67). The MS. book described by Mr. G. E. Fussell is only a schoolboy's exercise, in- tended to " rub in " some of the principal facts of English history, and at the same time to teach the neat-handed use of pen and ink. In much the same way, and with a similar object, most of us have made school - boy maps of ancient Greece and Italy. B. B. THE PLAGUE PITS (12 S. viii. 450, 495 r 97 ; ix. 12, 35). Now that discussion is revived regarding the identity of th& plague pits of London during the severest epidemic visitation, it may be noted that Mr. Balleine, the sometime curate at Whitechapel St. Mary's, declared it is a myth that victims of the dreaded disease were buried pell-mell at the AVhitechapel Mount. The plague pit for that then semi-rural locality was where St. Philip's Church now stands, behind the modern London Hospital. By the by, the White - chapel St. Mary cleric says the much- debated Mount " existed from the very earliest times, being probably a Saxon fortification to protect the High Road from the Danes, who held the Eastern Counties. In 1642, when Charles I. was supposed ta be marching on London, it was restored to its original use, men, women, and children working night and day digging trenches from the road to the River Thames and piling all the earth on the top of the Mount which was crowned by formidable stone- works."' When was made what was called the New Road a way down to the then new docks and river quays, in 1807, across the last remains of the ancient Stepney-Wapping marsh these lowlands so much increased in value, that the White - chapel Mount was carted away and the site built upon for the accommodation of the fast increasing trading interests of the port and the evicted of St. Katharine's precinct. Me. J?otcs on Prehistory : A Study of early Cultures in Europe and the Mediterranean Basin. By M. C. Burkitt, M.A., F.G.S. (Cambridge : Univer- sity Press, 35s. net.) MB. BUBKITT is, we believe, a young man ; but he has already made his mark in the study of prehistoric man, where he has proved the most brilliant pupil of the Abbe Breuil (who contributes a delightful little preface to this book). He is himself an excavator, a cave-explorer, who has contributed valuable discoveries to the common stock ; and his book is as independent and as first-hand as that of a young investigator should be. It is also cautious : he does not present