Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/57

 9 th S. I. JAN. 15, '98.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

49

"Oldborne, -or Hilborne, was the like water breaking out about the. place where now the bai do stand, and it ran downe the whole streete ti Oldborne bridge, and into the Riuer of the Wels, o Turnemill brooke : this Bourne was likewise Ion since stopped up at the heade, and in other place where the same hath broken out, but yet till thi day, the said street is there called high Oldborn hill, and both the sides thereof tpgither with all th grou'ds adioyning, that lie betwixt it and the riue of Thames, remaine full of springs, so that water i there found at hand, and hard to be stopped i euerie house."

He further says, at p. 27 :

" Oldbourne bridge over the said riuer of the Wei more towards the North was so called, of a Bourn that sometimes ranne downe Oldborne hill into th sayd Riuer."

Stow was not an etymologist, and he wa. sometimes careless as a topographer ; but his statements on the subject of the Holborn are so explicit that I feel it impossible to doub them, especially when confirmed, as I believi them to be. by the petition of the inhabitants of St. Andrew's parish which I have twice previously quoted in these pages. The name of Holborn is easily accounted for. It was the bourn, or brook, that flowed into the hole or hollow formed by the valley of the Fleet In asking MR. LOFTIE for an authority, ] meant, of course, one of contemporary date, Mr. Waller's services to London topography are of the highest value, but his paper in the Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society is merely based on inference and deduction. I have even traced the genesis of his idea regarding the identity of the _ Holborn and the Fleet. It will be found in a review of Mr. Newton's map of London which he contributed to the Gentle- man's Magazine for 1856 (vol. xlv., N.S., p. 572). He therein refers to the paper by Mr. T. E. Tomlins which I cited 8 th S. ix. 369, and says that that writer's evidence is so clear and

well-known charter, and, while agreeing with him in his demolition of Stow's etymology, am by no means convinced of the correctness of his other theories. Finally, I may ask by what criteria, other than contemporary evi- dence, are we to discriminate between the correctness or otherwise of Stow's statements. The paragraph preceding that which I have quoted about the Holborn describes the Lang- borne, of which, like the Holborn, he says : " This Bourne also is long since stopped up at the head, and the rest of the course filled up and

speaks m the preceding paragraph.
 * That is, like to the Langborne, about which he

.paued ouer, so that, no. signe thereof remayneth more than the names aforesaid."

This- account, I believe, has never been questioned. Are we, then, to believe that the old tailor was right about the Langborne, but wrong about the Holborn ? And, if so, why should he be more correct in one case than in the other? The charter on which Mr. Tomlins based his conclusions is sus- ceptible of more than one explanation. I have been at work on it for a year, and feel as doubtful as ever regarding some of the points contained in it.

Fleet ridge.The fine of 1197 which is quoted from Madox by ME. NEILSON is, I presume, the famous one cited by Mr. Ashton in his book on 'The Fleet,' p. 230, under which

"Natanael de Leveland et Robertus filius suus r. c. de LX marcis, pro habendS, custodiam Domorum Regis de Westmonasterio et Gaiota de Ponte de Fliete, quae est hereditas eorum a Con- questu Angliae." Mag. Rot. 9 Ric. I. Rot. 2a. Lond. et Midd.

The Leveland family seem to have been hereditary custodians of the gaol of Fleet Bridge, and, with deference to MR. LOFTIE, [ think there can be no reasonable doubt that the gaol in question was the Fleet, which had existed from the Conquest, and not Newgate, which was not heard of before ?leet Bridge and not Holborn Bridge. The tatement that
 * he twelfth century. Nor does it seem open
 * o question that the "Pons de Fliete" was

' the bridge, between the new postern or Ludgate at the Old Bailey and the roadway of Fleet Street, was not in existence before 1200,"


 * an only be accepted on the understanding

hat a stone bridge, such as existed in the ime of Stow, is intended, for it stands to eason that no traveller emerging from Oudgate, which is one of the most ancient utlets of the City, would adopt the circuitous lolborn route if he wished to get to West- ninster. Some kind of bridge over the r leet, which to a comparatively recent date as a navigable stream, must nave existed rom the earliest times, and of such im- >ortance was it that it gave name to a treet :

" Eodem anno (12 R. Hen. III.) quidam Henricus

e Buke occidit quendam le Ireis le Tyulour

uodam knipulo in vico de Fletebrigge." ' Liber Jbus,' ed. Riley, i. 86.

"leet Bridge also formed one of the boundary oints in the soke which the Fitz Walter amily held as castellans of London (Bay- ard's Castle), and must have been a very ncient London landmark.