THE DOMESDAY SURVEY one divided according to modern parishes, that we realize the great change in local divisions and nomenclature effected by the church. Names which are now either lost or represented only by a manor or farm are there found as those of places as important then as some which have now eclipsed them in our eyes. The terminations of many of these point to their early origin, but the most interesting are the ' thorpes.' So distinctive is the ' thorpe ' termination that when Mr. Freeman visited Essex he was incredulous, I have been told, as to its occurrence in the county. Yet even to-day we find on the map the parishes of Gestingthorpe, Easthorpe and Thorpe-le-Soken. The last of these, at the time of the Survey, was included in the soke of ' Eadwulfsness,' and therefore does not occur by name ; but, in compensation, Domesday shows us, in the south-east of the county, North and South ' Thorpe,' standing, it should be observed, near Shoeburyness, precisely as Thorpe- le-Soken adjoins that other ' ness ' which once gave name to ' Eadwulfs- ness,' and gives it now to Walton-on-the-Naze. 1 Of these Scandinavian terminations, * ness ' is similarly preserved in Foulness, Wrabness and Easiness (near Clacton-on-Sea), 8 while ' thorpe ' lingered for awhile in the now forgotten name of Ingledesthorpe in White Colne. Stranger than the disappearance from the map of the ancient township names is that of an ancient Hundred. The archaic name of 1 Thunreslau,' now wholly lost, occurs twice in the Essex Domesday as that of a ' Half Hundred,' and the most startling achievement, perhaps, of Essex historians in the way of identification was the bold translation of this ' Half Hundred ' from the neighbourhood of Sudbury on the Suffolk border to that of Bishop Stortford. Morant observed of this
- uncommon, and at present unknown, district of the Half-Hundred of
Thunreslau,' that Domesday mentions it as comprehending the manors of Belchamp, Belindune, Bineslea and Walla in Great Hallingbury. How these few manors should constitute a Half-Hundred, or whether Thunreslau is an older name for this Half-Hundred than Harlow, we are by no means able to determine (ii. 507). He identified however the first of these manors with Down Hall in Harlow, ' for the agreableness of its situation ' ; the second and third he made into the manors of ' Ballington's ' and ' the Lea ' in Hatfield Broadoak ; and the last he placed in Hallingbury. 8 In all this he was at one with Salmon, who, as pointed out by Mr. Chisenhale-Marsh, adopted these identifications. Yet the Domesday entry which Morant printed as referring to Down Hall had already (ii. 329) been rightly given by him as referring to Belchamp Walter, in the north-east of the county, while that which describes ' Belindune ' refers, not to Hatfield, 1 The same variety of form is found in Domesday, which gives us &divcsnaia ' and ' Wrabe- nasa,' but, across the Stour, ' Colenesse.' 1 The position of a corresponding ' Westnesse,* at the mouth of the Colne, which is mentioned in the charter of Richard I. to Colchester, has been much disputed. There are also a ' Tilbury ness ' and a Stone new ' on the Thames, a ' Wallasea ness ' on the Crouch, a ' Nase wick ' in Foulness (adjoining), and at the mouth of the Blackwater ' The Mass.' On the Suffolk bank of the Stour are ' Stutton ness ' and ' Ness farm.' ' See, for this difficult manor, p. 396 above. 405
