Cauldshore,[1] we may, without difficulty, recognize a corruption of the original Cerdices-ora of the Chronicle and Florence. The word is formed like the names of various places close by, such as Needsore (the under-shore) and Stansore Point.[2] But going farther back, we come much nearer to its original form in the old Forest perambulation made in the eighth year of Edward I., where it is spelt Kalkesore.[3] As then, Charford, on the north-east borders of the New Forest, is the representative of Cerdices-ford, where Cerdic's last victory was gained over Ambrosius; so here, I think, at the south-west, near Kalkesore, now Calshot, was his first achieved.
From this point the scenery completely changes. Instead of lanes and cultivated fields, the shingly beach of the Solent, covered in places to the water's edge with woods, sweeps away to
- ↑ In a letter of Southampton's to Cromwell, 17th September, 1539 (State Papers, vol. i. p. 617), it is called Calsherdes; whilst in another letter of his, also to Cromwell (Ellis's Letters, second series, vol. ii. p. 87), he writes Calshorispoynte. Leland, in his Itinerary (Ed. Hearne, second edition, vol. iii., p. 94, f. 78), speaks of both "Cauldshore" and "Caldshore Castelle;" and again (p. 93, f. 77), calls it Cawshot, as it is also spelt in Baptista Boazio's Map of the Isle of Wight, 1591; whilst in the State papers of Elizabeth we find Calshord. (Record Office. Domestic Series, No. 43, f. 52. Aug. 27th, 1567.) I give these examples to show the number of variations through which the name has passed. No form is too grotesque for a corruption to assume. How names become corrupted, let me give an example in the word Hagthorneslad (from the Old-English "hagaþorn," a hawthorn), as it is written in the perambulation of the Forest in the twenty-ninth year of Edward I., which in Charles II.'s time is spelt Haythorneslade, thus losing its whole significance, although to this day the word "hag" is used in the Forest for a "haw," or "berry."
- ↑ The simple termination "ore"—"ora," and not "oar," as spelt in the Ordnance Map, may be found within a stone's throw of Calshot, in Ore Creek.
- ↑ See previously, chapter iv. p. 40, foot-note.
