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flags and slates, with Cliff Towers gracefully commanding the valley from its bold sylvan side. The height overlooks Edenfield village, whose houses, faintly fringed with trees, picturesquely strike the sky-line between Windy Arbour and the eastern flank of Cribden (1317 feet). From Windy Arbour, Dearden Moor sweeps round behind Whittle Pike, the monarch of the region (1572 feet). On the southern slope of the moor stands Newhall, now old, with its weird traditions of plague and ghost and intramural sepulture ; while beyond Whittle, on the bare green slope of Fo' Edge, still "tinkling" in the wild upland stillness, "drips" Edwin Waugh's lone well-a modern pilgrim-spot, where

"A lonely, rindling fountain,
Yonder moorland hills among,
From the heather-breasted mountain,
Tinkling drips its liquid song."

In front, bare and bold, are Scout and Facit. Between
these is seen the crown of Whittle Pike. South of
Shuttleworth brook, Harden Hill, with Fletcher Bank,
famed for Millstone-grit, in front, leads the eye back
to "Top o'th' Hoof." Waugh concludes one of his best
stories with these words "I had a fine starlight walk to
'Th' Top o' th' Hough' on that breezy October night. After
a quiet supper in Owd Bob's little parlour, I took a walk
round about the quaint farmstead, and through the grove
upon the brow of the hill. The full moon had risen in the
cloudless sky, and the view of the valley as I saw it from
'Grant's Tower' that night was a thing to be remembered
for a man's lifetime."

As seen from the south, the hills that guard the valley present a majestic horse-shoe formation - Cribden, in the

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15

CHAPTER II.

PLACE NAMES.

HERE, through remote centuries, different races have

W successively held sway in a country, and ancient

records are rare or altogether wanting in a district, it may be both interesting and instructive to consult the nomenclature of the hills and dales, and try, through familiar place-names, to shake hands with our predecessors in the "fable-shaded eras"1 of a distant and otherwise unrecorded antiquity. It is to supply something illustrative of this, in a very limited sphere, that the writer furnishes the following notes on a few local place-names.

Alderbottom often "Owlerbottom." bottom where Alder trees abounded.

The holm or

Barwood, in Barwoodlea, &c., means Boarwood-from the Anglo-Saxon bár, a boar-the wood infested with boars. This, and such other names as Bull Hill, Boarsgreave, Sowclough, Wolfstones, Wolfenden, Buckhurst, Dearden, &c., record unerringly the forest fauna of many centuries ago. Bass Lane. Bass might come (1) from bass, or bast, a fibrous bark from which ropes and mats are made-but

1 Hawick's famous song, "Tyr-ibus ye Tyr ye Odin."

there is no trace of any such industry there; or (2) from bass, "shale found in coal." Shale amply cushions the millstone grit of the neighbouring hills, and abounds in the coal measures of the locality; and it appears plentifully in the deep wooded clough along the upper margin of which Bass Lane extends. From this word, therefore, in all likelihood, the name has sprung. But (3) there is another possibility in the obsolete word bass, a kiss, or to kiss; and thus some might find in Bass Lane an old equivalent of

Lovers' Lane.

Buckden, the dell or glen of the bucks. From buck, a stag, and den, which, in place-names, means dell, dingle, or glen. Dion, in Gaelic and Irish, means a valley or sheltered place. The Saxon evidently got the word from

the Celt.

Buckhurst, the thicket or grove of the bucks or stags. From buck, and old Norse hrioster, or Anglo-Saxon hyrst, a grove or thicket.

Carr, a name in the north-west portion of Ramsbottom" Fold," “Carr Street,” or “The Carr,”“Carr Fowt" or “Carr Terrace,” “Carr Barn," now "Carr Bank," &c.

Carr may come from the Danish kaer, the Icelandic kiar or kaer, or the old-Swedish kaerr, which alike mean a marsh, or marshy place. Carse, as in "The Carse o' Gowrie" or "The Carse of Stirling," meaning low-lying fertile land, is supposed to have a kindred origin. But one does not very readily associate "The Carr" at Ramsbottom, We may, with its steep ascent, with either marsh or carse. therefore, look for another root. The vernacular, “up t' ker," shows that the double r is no insuperable difficulty. Now Caer, or Car-as in Carlisle, Carnarvon, Caermarthen,

Carmunnock, and other names in the language of the ancient Britons meant a city, a castle or fort, or place surrounded by a wall, or palisades, or a rampart. In this locality the Caer may have been of the most primitive

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description, protected, perhaps, by palisades, and a natural rampart formed by an abrupt break in the side of the hill. But it is probable that a fortified place of some kind existed in pre-Roman times on the hill-side somewhere in this

B

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