DtwH NoUs and Quems. 3 later date and mis-spelled, but showing clearly how the modem name developed and its meaning got ultimately lost. Sil or Sul can hardly be anything but sulk, Anglo-Saxon for plough, still called sool or zowl in the West of England. It is not hard to see how modern orthographers, hearing the local pronunciation, and knowing how the natives pronounce the name of the metal silver, should take it that the once Sulhford was really Silver. Now to explain this derivation Sulh-ford, or Plough-ford. I believe the name to have been applied where a ford had to be made by hand instead of being made by nature. This would ordinarily necessitate digging or ploughing a sloping trench through the bank on either side to the water. It would probably be a very narrow one at first, and would suggest the idea of a ploughed furrow, and fix its name as Plough-ford, after the form in which ploughed or ploughable land got called plough-land. I might suggest another likely reason; but I think this the preferable one; and I will give the name Trenchford, which is the name of a homestead in Bridford parish, as perhaps the exact equivalent in name and signification to Sulhford or Silver. As to the frequent, but not constant, prefix ** Little. Such a ford always would have been little at first; and when another and natural and broader ford existed not far from it, it would probably have been found necessary, for discriminating, to add the term Little. Especially when the meaning of Sulhford got to be lost would this qualifying term be necessary and retained. I believe the Little'* is nowhere appended to Sulhford in Anglo-Saxon times, which fact is a strong support to my theory. And, more- over, in the parish of Down St. Mary, we have a farm called Bradiford, the meaning of which is obvious, on which is a field called Little Silver Park. The estate is triangular with rivers on two sides of it; and the names of the con- trasted fords on or near it are thus preserved in conjunction to this very day, although what originally bore and gave these names are superseded and forgotten. In testing my theory your readers will of course make sure that their examples are ancient ones and not modern applications ; f.^., Silvertown, near North Woolwich, is a town but fifty years old, taking its name and owing its existence to the
