Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/191

 9*s.iv.sept.3o,'99.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 271 These shops were approached by steps, known as " tavern stairs," which lay partly across the street, and were a permanent obstacle to traffic. It would be useful if Mr. Boyle would give us some account of the present appearance of the Beverley dings. So far as my observation goes, there were two typical kinds of shops. One was a mere shed, fixed against the gable end of a dwelling-house, and obstructing the ground now used as a footpath. The other was the underground room just mentioned. It is not, however, likely that underground shops exist at Beverley now, though we must remember that the word ding, if originally applied to such a shop, may have acquired a secondary meaning, so as to have been applied to a shop generally, or to the place where the shop stood. The Romans complained that casual huck- sters and others blocked the streets, and Domitian ordered the tabernoe to be confined to the house. See Martial's ' Epigram ' (vii. 61) beginning :— Abstulerat totam tomurarius institor urbem. Of course, the forcible removal of booths from the streets might have led to the making of shops beneath the houses. It appears from Mr. Boyle's extract from Domesday that not all the houses in York had shops. The four little shops or dings attached to Gamel's house may help to show a resemblance in form or position between the shops of an English city in the eleventh century and the shops of Roman towns. S. O. Addy. Ding, though obsolete in this sense, doubt- less meant something akin to "pitch," which is still in use. It is applied to the whole quantity put down for sale in open market, e. g., a "pitch " of cheese ; such a market is a " pitched" market, at which a fee called a "pitching-penny " was paid; see 'N. & Q.,' 8tL S. viii. 316; and for ding-= throw, see 'H.E.D.' W. C. B. A Foster Pedigree (9th S. iv. 184).—There is one point in Mr. A. W. J. Foster's note which seems to require some explanation. He says that Sir Thomas Foster, of Ether- stone, co. Northumberland, married a daughter of Baron Hilton. There were two Barons Hilton. Robert de Hilton was summoned to Parliament from 23 June, 23 Edw. I., 1295, to 26 Aug., 24 Edw. I., 1296. He died, leaving two daughters and coheirs: Isabel, wife of Walter de Pedwardyn, and Maud, wife of Sir John Hotham. Alexander de Hilton was summoned from 27 Jan., 6 Edw. III., 1332, to 22 Jan., 9 Edw. III., 1336, and died, leaving Elizabeth, his daughter and sole heir, who married Roger Widdrington, from which marriage descended William, the last Lord Widdrington, on whose attainder in 1716 this barony became forfeited (see Courthope's ' Historic Peerage of England,' ed. 1857, p. 252). I cannot, however, find that any of the Widdringtons were ever summoned to Parliament in the barony of Hilton, or that they ever assumed that title. Mr. Foster should, therefore, say to which Baron Hilton he refers. The great-grandson of either of those that I have named could scarcely have held a position at the Courts of Queens Mary and Elizabeth. W. F. Prideaux. An Old Bellrinoer (9th S. iv. 185).—I can give an instance of an older bellringer than Mr. Thomas Hussey mentioned in the Leigh Chronicle of 18 Aug. In 1878, when on a visit at Clyst St. George Rectory, near Exeter, to your venerable correspondent the Rev. H. T. Ellacombe. rector or that parish, and then father of the University of Oxford, I went with him to the opening of Alphington Church, near Exeter. At the conclusion of the service Mr. Ellacombe, then ninety years of age, took one of the bells in the peal, and rang it well. I remember he set me right for calling it a peal, as he said " ring of bells " was the more correct term ; " peal, he said, applied to the sound or music. Mr. Hussey was eighty-seven, Mr. Ellacombe three years older. No one in England, I should imagine, had a greater knowledge of bells, or a greater collection of literature connected with them, than my worthy host. There is the public- house sign the " Ring of Bells." John Pickford, M.A. Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge. Peerless Pool (9th S. iii. 103: iv. 128, 197) is mentioned in Sinclair and Henry's ' Swimming,' 1893, p. 23, and I have no doubt also in ' The Swimming Baths of London,' by R. E. Dudgeon, M.D., 1870, an excellent little treatise, but a new edition is very badly wanted. I send this note as it brings the matter up to a much later date than the refer- ences at p. 197. Ralph Thomas. Pens : " Nibs " and " Nebs " (9th S. iii. 365 ; iv. 96, 171).—I think I can say for London what Mr. W. H. Quarrell says for the counties he names. When I was at school in the eighties, the term mostly used was "nib." It was a common enough excuse to the master for bad penmanship, "The nib is a bad one, sir." " Pen " was more generally used for the whole, i. e., both holder and nib ; but the latter term was almost invariably used when