J. H. C.
Adelaide, South Australia.
Minnis.—There are (or there were) in East Kent seven Commons known by the local term "Minnis," viz., 1. Ewell Minnis; 2. River do.; 3. Cocclescombe do.; 4. Swingfield do.; 5. Worth do.; 6. Stelling do.; 7. Rhode do. Hasted (History of Kent) says he is at a loss for the origin of the word, unless it be in the Latin "Mina," a certain quantity of land, among different nations of different sizes; and he refers to Spelman's Glossary, verbum "Mina."
Now the only three with which I am acquainted, River, Ewell, and Swingfield Minnis, near Dover, are all on high ground; the two former considerably elevated above their respective villages.
One would rather look for a Saxon than a Celtic derivation in East Kent; but many localities, &c. there still retain British or Celtic names, and eminently so the stream that runs through River and Ewell, the Dour or Dwr, unde, no doubt, Dover, where it disembogues into the sea. May we not therefore likewise seek in the same language an interpretation of this (at least as far as I know) hitherto unexplained term?
In Armorican we find "Menez" and "Mene," a mount. In the kindred dialect, Cornish, "Menhars" means a boundary-stone; "Maenan" (Brit.), stoney moor; "Mynydh" (Brit.), a mountain, &c.
As my means of research are very limited, I can only hazard a conjecture, which it will give me much pleasure to see either refuted or confirmed by those better informed.
A. C. M.
Brighton.—It is stated in Lyell's Principles of Geology, that in the reign of Elizabeth the town of Brighton was situated on that tract where the Chain Pier now extends into the sea; that in 1665 twenty-two tenements still remained under the cliffs; that no traces of the town are perceptible; that the sea has resumed its ancient position, the site of the old town having been merely a beach abandoned by the ocean for ages. On referring to the "Attack of the French on Brighton in 1545," as represented in the engraving in the Archæologia, April 14, 1831, I find the town standing apparently just where it is now, with "a felde in the middle," but with some houses on the beach opposite what is not Pool Valley, on the east side of which houses the French are landing; the beach end of the road from Lewes.
A. C.