Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/311

 9* s. vin. OCT. 12, 1901.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

303

appears to be coming into common use in Ireland. It occurs in the adjoining lines of the preceding column of the same news- paper. E. S. DODGSON. Dublin.

" EXPENDITOR." In 'N.E.D.' expenditor is marked as obsolete, and the latest quotation given for it is 1847. But there is to-day to be seen in St. Peter's Street, Canterbury, a wire window-blind announcing the name of a surveyor and land agent who is " General Expenditor to East Kent Sewers." The word "formerly" needs, therefore, to be omitted from the special definition given in 'N.E.D.' ALFKED F. BOBBINS.

SURRENDER OF LAND BY A STRAW. This

custom is observed, even in modern times, on the occasion of every formal surrender of land in the manor of Tupcoates-with-Myton, within the present city of Kingston-upon- Hull. Of. J. Travis-Cook, 'Notes relative to the Manor of My ton,' pp. 153 and 204. A similar custom, it seems, prevailed also in Brabant, according to L. Galesloot, 'Inven- taire des Archives de la Cour Feodale de Brabant ' (Bruxelles, 1884) :

" L'acquereur d'un fief etait investi d'une manure k la fois re'elle et symbolique. La derniere se faisait par la presentation d'un ftu de paille (halm), d'une gerbe et d'un rameau (cum cespite et ramo), en flamand met resche ende met ryse.P. xlii.

Cf. also Annexe No. xi. p. ciii, 'Formule touchant 1'investiture des fiefs,' wherein, however, only the straw (halm) is mentioned.

L. L. K.

ARCHIBALD BOWER. In the 'Court and City Kalendar,' issued with Rider's ' British Merlin,' 1759, p. 208, the Secretary of the King's Household is stated to be "The Reverend Father, Arch. Bower of the Society of Jesus." This is an extraordinary state- ment, and is not noticed in the ' D.N.B.,' vi. 48-51. W. C. B.

DICKENS AND TONG. The following passage is taken from the Staffordshire Advertiser, 31 August ; it appears in the report given of a visit paid to South-West Staffordshire by the North Staffordshire Field Club :

" The party then drove on to Tpng, whose annals show that this secluded village is associated with some of the greatest names in English history, from the Saxon Earls of Mercia downwards. The church is famous for two widely different reasons : first, for the fine collection of monuments of former owners of long, amongst whom were Earl Morcar, in the reign of Edward the Confessor, and the distinguished houses of De Montgomery. De Belmeis (including the founder of Lilleshall Abbey), La Zouche, De Harcourt, De Pembruge, Vernon (including Dorothy, who eloped from Haddon Hall with Sir

John Manners), Stanley, Pierpoint, Kingston, and Bridgeman. And secondly, it is the church which Charles Dickens (by his own admission to a former Archdeacon of Salop) had in his mind when he wrote the pathetic story of Little Nell in the ' Old Curiosity Shop,' and so secured for Tong a literary immortality."

B. D. MOSELEY. [See 4 th S. viii. 325.]

LEIGH IN LANCASHIRE. In a reply con- cerning the termination -halgh MR. SLATER says (9 th S. ii. 15), "I believe I have heard Leigh in Lancashire pronounced as ' Leith.' "

The old pronunciation was " Leich," the ei being about equivalent in sound to eh, and the ch being a modification of the Scotch ch in "loch."

Some ten years ago I had to address a meet- ing at Leigh. Before going to it I asked my host how the people of the town pronounced the name. He told me that I might get a smile out of some of the old people by using the old pronunciation, but that the place was called by every one " Lee."

I have heard the cheese, the quality of which for toasting used to be much thought of, called "Leek cheese" far away from Lancashire, but that was no doubt a cor- ruption of the pronunciation which I have tried to indicate. ROBERT PIERPOINT.

WE must request correspondents desiring infor- mation on family matters of only private interest to aflix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that the answers may be addressed to them direct.

ARMS OF FOUNTAINS ABBEY. A few days ago I purchased in Ripon at an ordinary china shop some newly made china mementoes of Ripon bearing on them what purports to be the shield or arms of Fountains Abbey. The shield is, Azure, three horseshoes or, two and one, and the legend under it, on a scroll, is "Fountains Abbey." Mr. St. John Hope in his remarkable monograph on the abbey (Yorkshire Archaeological Journal. vol. xv.) writes of a shield like the above, engraved on the abbey tower :

" Three Horseshoes. These arms have hitherto been considered as those of the abbey, but no example earlier than Huby's time is known, and they are more probably his personal arms than those of the monastery. If they be the abbey arms, whence are they derived and what do they mean? They occur on none of the abbey seals."

The Huby mentioned was Marmaduke Huby, abbot from 1494 to 1526, and he built the tower. The horseshoes are with his initials. The bearing of horseshoes was mainly con-