Page:Surrey Archaeological Collections Volume 1.djvu/313

 modern town of Croydon once stood some great idol or temple sacred to Woden, that religious rites were there performed, and that to some of these ceremonies were devoted adjacent woods and meads, the site of which may be indicated by the name of Haling, a manor which is hardly half a mile from either Waddon or Croydon, and whose name is derived by Ducarel from the old Saxon word for sanctus, which is hahj (from whence also comes the old English word All Hallows, for All Saints) ; and he deems it not unlikely that the words lialig and inge may mean "holy meadow" (DucareFs Croydon, p. 73) ; for in the names of places, as Gibson remarks in his "Camden," inge signifies a meadow, from the Saxon ing, of the same import : and it may be worthy of notice, that from the very unusual names of two of the fields at Haling (Great and Little Rangers), we might conclude that circular stones, or earthworks, connected with Druidical ceremonies, once existed here ; " Ranger" being derived from the old British rlienge, which comes from the German ring, a circle. Now, in the interval between Waddon and Haling, short as is the distance, yet in that half-mile we pass a little group of two or three houses known as " Cold Harbour" — a place, like almost all the other Cold Har- bours (and they are many) dotted over England, of very remote antiquity; but whether it was originally the site of a military or religious station, or the place of meeting for the old British bards, antiquarians are not exactly agreed ; they all, however, seem to incline to the conclu- sions that the name of Cold Harbour is a gross corruption, and that it marks the site of the transactions of very early ages. The word Cold, as Sir U. Colt Hoare remarks in his " History of Ancient Wiltshire" {Stinton Station, jp. 40), ils frequently prefixed to the names of places, as