In the same way another first word element gave the place names (and surnames from them) of Bosley (Cattle-ley), Boston, Bosbury, Boswell, Bostock, and Boscastle. Again, Stanley, Stanwell, Stanton, Stanbury, and Stanbatch. And I have shown how the white (salt) man gave the first element to innumerable place names on his route. There is a Silver Tump and a Brass Knoll in the Olchon Valley, both proved sighting tumps.
The names Bowley, Bowling Green (farm, also a quarry near Ewias Harold), Bolitree, Bolstone, Bollingham, Bal Mawr, Balls Cross, Ballgate, Bellgate, Bellimore, and Belmont, all seem akin to the rounded outline of an inverted bowl, or to boils, bowels, and belly of animal life, and indicate the rounded tump.
The house at Bolitree is built on a tump with signs of a moat, and as I found a ley through Bollingham (house and chapel) I went there to find the bol, and there it was, a fine tump with an old summerhouse on its summit.
Gate in a place name (as in Hill Gate, Three Gates, Ballgate, England’s Gate, Burley Gate, etc.) did not mean, as now, something which stopped a way (that was called a lid-yatt), but the way itself. It is much the same as the word pass. The same element (modified) is in such names as Gatley, Gatsford, Yatton, Symonds Yat, Woodyatt’s Cross.
Lee Line and Timberline Wood are place names clearly describing leys. There is a Linton and a Linley at Stanford Bishop—the mark stone and the ley. I think that Lyonshall, Lynhales, Lion Farm, and Hobby Lyons are variations.
Such names as Winslow, Preston Wynne, Winsley, and Winyard (Radnor Forest) indicate the road by which wine was brought. Totnor, Totteridge, Tothill, and Twt indicate (as Mr. J. G. Wood has pointed out) tumps, and they are all sighting tumps on leys. Mr. Wood (who has come very near discovering the ley) also—in Woolhope Transactions for 1919—connects Titterstone, Clee Hill ([Plate I].) with the word Tot or Toot. Tooting and Tottenham are London forms of the word. Rosemary Topping (English Bicknor) is a much prettier name for a sighting tump.
Bur or Burl seems to be descriptive of some form of sighting point. Leys pass through Burley, Burlton, Burton (many of this name), Burford, and The Burcot; and there is a Burl Hill in Radnorshire.
Although a ley ran from peak to peak there must have been an earlier termination to its useful part, or a still more restricted part used by traders. Hence—in London—Finsbury; Capel-y-fin in the Black Mountains; and Fine Street, near Letton, have probably the same meaning, which, however, seems to be locally more often expressed by the word end, as in New End (Canon Pyon), Red Wych End (Cowarne), Nupend, etc.
As regards the place name element “broad” (also brad and bred), a ley passes through Broad Green (Orleton), The Broad, north of Leominster, Broadward, south of Leominster (dead on the main road at each of these two), and on to Broadlands at Aylestone Hill, Hereford. It was the road, not the place, which was broad, constructed for wheel traffic, for which the previous pack-horse tracks were too narrow. Mr. Allan Bright, of Barton Court, Colwall, wrote me, pointing out that a ley from the Wych through his house to Ledbury Church, also ran through a meadow of his called Broadley Meadow. Such names as Bradley, Bradlow, Bradford, Broadmoor, Broad Oak, and Bredwardine are thus explained.
Probably most instances of the word elements, little and long, apply to the roads which pass through the places. Hereford is (no doubt correctly) said to mean “army road.” Little Hereford is not a small edition of the town, but of the road. Litley is the small ley, Longley is the long ley, and so with the stone, grove, land, and ford (there have been two Longfords). Long in old spelling was often lange; and little, lutel or luttel—these from Canon Bannister’s list. Hence come the (places and surnames) Langstone, Langford, Langland, Langton, Lutley, Luton. The two Leinthalls—Earles and Starkes—are seldom called by these second names locally, but are Little Leinthall and Long Leinthall respectively, the element leint (occurring also in Leintwardine) being I surmise derived from ley. Little Leynthale, to quote an old spelling, would be the meadow traversed by the short ley.