A HISTORY OF HEREFORDSHIRE pot, and that the division of the county which emerges in the i 3th century was altogether different. Even the modern Hundred of Wolphy, with its many outlying portions, is a complicated entity to grasp, but when we turn to Domesday we feel utterly at sea. One of the existing eleven hundreds, that of Wigmore, includes the Herefordshire portion of that hundred of Leintwardine which Domesday surveys under Shropshire. Eleven there- fore represent more than the sixteen that seem to be recognized in the Survey of the county as it then was. Five of these existing hundreds retain Domes- day names, namely, Wolphy (' Ulfei,' 'Ulfagie'), Stretford (' Stratford,' ' Strad- ford '), Radio w (' Radelau '), Greytree (' Greitreu,' ' Greitrewes,' 'Gretrewes'), and Wormelow (' Wermelau '). But this must not blind us to the alterations in their boundaries. Greytree, for instance, now includes that Domesday hundred of ' Bremesese,' of which the name is preserved in Brooms Ash at some cross roads to the east of Ross ; and Edvin Ralph, then in the hundred of ' Plegeliet,' is now a detached portion of Wolphy in the midst of Broxash Hundred. The Domesday names of hundreds that have not been retained are eleven : 'Bremesese ' (' Bremesse,' ' Bromesais,' ' Bromesesce ') , ' Cutestorn ' (' Cutestornes,' ' Chistestornes'), Dinedor ('Dunre'), ' Elsedune,' ' Hezetre,' ' Plegeliet' ('Plegelget '), 'Stepleset ' (' Stapel '), ' Stradel,' '"' ' Thornlau ' ('Tor- nelaus,' ' Tornelawes'), 'Tragetreu,'^** and ' Wimundestreu ' (' Wimundstruil,' ' Wimestruil,' ' Wim' strui')."" In their place we have now the names of Broxash, Ewyas Lacy, Grimsworth, Huntington, and Webtree. Of hundredal names the most interesting are at all times those which remind us of those moots beneath the open sky to which the men of the hundred gathered. The upland down, the landmark tree, the ' low ' or burial mound, the familiar ford, these, and not the towns or villages, were the scenes of those ancient assemblies, of which the venerable names lingered on in courts for the collection of petty debts, and survive in all their force as the guide-posts of English topography. Pre-eminent, perhaps, as a trysting-place, in this region, was the tree. When Harold and his host encountered the Norman Duke, the English chronicle describes them as having ' come to- gether at the hoar apple tree.' And the name of Hugh L'Asne's Worcester- shire manor — ' Tichenapletreu ' — had of course the same derivation.'"'^ In Herefordshire the Domesday hundreds of Greitreu, Tragetreu, Bromesesce, and Cutestorn took their names from trees, as do the modern hundreds of Broxash and Webtree ; so in Worcestershire, did the Domesday hundreds of Doddingtree (' Dodintreu,' ' Dodintret '), and Ash ('Esch,' 'Naisse'), and in Gloucestershire those of Longtree (' Langetreu,' ' Langetrewes ') and ' Celfle- dedorn.' We need not, therefore, hesitate to assign the same origin to the names of ' Alnodestreu ' (' Elnoelstrui,' 'Elnoelstruil,' &c.), and ' Witentrei ' (' Witentreu '), Domesday hundreds of Shropshire. ^^^ '" Used once only, apparently for ' Stradelei Vallis.' '** This only occurs once, but is there prefixed to three entries. '" A hundred of ' Sulcet ' also occurs, but only one entry (of half a hide) is assigned to it ; and one of the ' Lene ' manors is entered as ' In Lene Hundret.' '^ Derbyshire has a hundred of Appletree. '^' See Prof. Tait's article on the Domesday Survey of that county (F.C.H. Shrops. i, 283). Mr. W. H. Stevenson, vyhose authority vi-ill be deemed decisive, informs me that the suffix treu undoubtedly denotes deriva- tion from ' tree.' Similar examples may be quoted from counties at the opposite end of England, in the hundreds of ' Wandelmestrei ' and ' Homestreu,' which occur in Sussex, that of ' Helmestrei,' which is found in Kent, and Edwinestreu, now Edwinstree, in Hertfordshire. 302
