sky, and felt the singular appropriateness of the

name.

POOLE: from the Welsh pwl, whenever it occurs (and we have at least two Pooles in Wirral) is unanimously accepted as Celtic by all the leading writers on the subject.

We next come to an interesting trio-Liscard, Seacombe, and Poolton, the three townships in Wallasey parish-all of which can undoubtedly claim a Celtic origin, a fact of no little interest, as corroborating the derivation of Wallasey from the Old English Wealas-ieg, the Welshman's or Briton's island, to which I shall refer later on.

LISCARD: From the Gadhelic word lis-an earthen fort (in Ireland the word lis enters into the composition of no fewer than 300 place-names). Liskeard in Cornwall (notice the county, where the Celtic element is so strong) is probably the same name, the mediæval spelling of both places being usually Liskert, Liscart, or Liskerret, though the Wirral one was sometimes spelt Liskirk and Liscark, which doubtless gave rise to the fable recounted by Robinson of the Lees Kirk.

SEACOMBE: Canon Isaac Taylor says-" The "word cwm is frequently used in Wales, where it "denotes a cup-shaped depression in the hills. "This word, in its Saxonised form, often occurs in

English local names, especially in those counties "where the Celtic element is strong, thus in "Devonshire we have Ilfracombe, Yarcombe, etc." (Words and Places, p. 151.)

It may be interesting here to point out that in Cheshire a brewing vat is called a combe, or coom, and as many of our household words-such as basket, crock, kiln, cradle, etc.-are borrowed from the British, this may be another example.

POOLTON is a compound of the Cymric word pul and the English ton.

There is also the other POOLTON, in Brombro' parish, usually called Poolton Spittle.

We now approach more debateable ground, and I would first of all deal with that much-discussed township of NOCTORUM.

I think it will not be overstating the case to say that more shots have been made at the derivation of this word than of all the other placenames in Wirral put together, and so far as my experience goes, I have never heard one that could be described as even remotely probable.

The first difficulty to most people, after they have got over the preliminary stage of imagining it to be the genitive plural of some second declension Latin word, is when a better-informed friend remarks, "Ah! but you must remember Domesday "Book calls it Chenoterie" (being always careful to pronounce the ch soft), and that usually brings the discussion to a close.

But let us hazard a suggestion. First of all, from a careful examination of Domesday Book, it appears that the scribes, in Cheshire and Lancashire at all events, pronounced the ch like our k, or rather, when they wanted to signify the hard c, or k, they wrote ch, so we at once find at least a distant resemblance to Noctorum in Kenoterie. Now to explain away the termination. I think there are reasonable grounds for believing that an error has been made here by the scribes, and this being so, I would suggest the following explanation. As you are no doubt aware, the Domesday Book is believed to have been prepared from reports sent in by various commissioners all over the country, and the man who had to do Wirral may not have been a very brilliant caligraphist, and the final curl that he gave when

2e.g., Chenthe for Kent, Pichetone for Picton, Chenulveslei for Knowsley, Chingslie for Kingsley, etc.

writing Kenoterum, and which he intended for a contraction for the final m or um, was read by the scribe at head quarters, who prepared the fair copy, as ie, and hence all the trouble.

But whether my somewhat fanciful explanation be the correct one or not, it is quite clear that if the Domesday folk called the place Chenoterie, no one else ever did; for, from 1272-when, in a document preserved at Eaton, it is written Knocttyrum -to Kelly's Directory for 1892, where it figures as Noctorum, I have never seen (allowing for slight variations in spelling) a single instance where any substantial alteration has occurred in the name.

And now, having attempted to clear away the perplexities of the Domesday Book reading, I would suggest as a possible derivation, the two Erse words knock, a hill, and druim (modern Irish, drum), a ridge; and certainly one could not wish for a better description of Noctorum to-day than the Hill-ridge.

Another disputed point is DOVE SPIT. I am indebted to Mr. Cox for the suggestion that this is from the Cymric du-black, and that it refers to the black vegetable bed, commonly called the Submarine Forest, which is a conspicuous feature of the spot. If this be the case, it should be a valuable point in the apparently interminable discussion as to the origin and age of this deposit. For my own part, however, it seems to me more likely that it should be derived from the Anglo-Saxon dúfan, to plunge into, and is akin to our word deep and our verb to dive.

CARLET, in Eastham parish, is probably from the word caer, which, from meaning a hill fort, came to be applied to the hill itself.

ARROWE is a puzzle. Canon Taylor classifies it as a Celtic word when applied to rivers, and says that it has the sense of "swift"; and though there

is a stream called the Arrowe brook running through the township, I do not think it is of sufficient importance to have received a name and then given it to the village; it seems more probable that the stream took its name from the township. In a document in my possession, however, (for which I am indebted to Mr. Gregson,) dated 1712, but which recites a much earlier document, the name is spelt Arwall; the termination of which is Norse, from velle, a house; and this is made. all the more probable by the close proximity of Thingwall and Greasby. I should mention,

however, on the other hand, that in other and earlier documents it is spelt Arwe, and therefore, probably, is connected with the Welsh verb Aru, to plough.

BRIMSTAGE I am also inclined to group as Celtic, though it may possibly be a hybrid; the early spelling is Brynstath, Brunstath, and Brynston. I take the first syllable to be the Celtic bryn, a hill. The comparatively elevated position of the village would certainly seem to support such a derivation.

There may be other place names in the Hundred which can claim a British origin, but the above seem to form a group which it does not require any great stretch of the imagination to accept as Celtic; and having arrived at this point, it may be well to draw a few conclusions from the results of our investigation.

In the first place, then, from the fact that such comparatively obscure and unimportant spots as Landican, Noctorum, Carlet, Tranmere, the Pooles and Pooltons, Liscard, and Seacombe bear British names, we may, I think, fairly conclude that Wirral during the British period, so far from being an uninhabited waste, must have been very fairly peopled and cultivated. And,

secondly, from the fact that these names have survived while the rest have been lost, we may conclude that the portions where the Celtic names occur were those parts which suffered least at the English invasion; and as the invaders would naturally make for the best cultivated and richer spots, it may fairly be argued that the Mersey side of the Wirral was the less attractive, for it is a noteworthy fact that all these Celtic names occur within a mile or two of the Mersey Bank, and none on the Dee side. The same strong preference for that side was evinced, as we shall see, by the Norse invaders in their turn.3

To come, then, to the English invasion. In Wirral, as in most parts of England, a large majority of the place-names date from this time.

Shortly after Æthelfrith's victory at Chester in 613, Wirral must have been colonized by the victorious Northumbrians, and from that date until the advent of the Norsemen, early in the ninth century, the English probably held it in comparative quietness; and through these long years, bit by bit, the old Celtic names would die out, as the British serfs lost more and more their nationality, and be replaced by the new names given by the new lords of the soil.

One of the most interesting tasks, to my mind, is to try and trace from the names on the map the spread of our English forefathers, and I think that we can at least make out their first footprints in this neighbourhood, to a certain extent.

From the fact that they christened the old Wirral "Willaston Hundred," we may, I think, conclude that their first settlement took place in that village,

3 Since reading the paper I have met with the undoubtedly British name Knokyn in a thirteenth century deed, applied to a hillock lying on the boundary between Irby and Thurstaston.