Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
(Lord’s day). At home, and Robert Barnwell with us, and dined, and in the evening my father and I walked round Portholme and viewed all the fields, which was very pleasant. Thence to Hinchingbroke, which is now all in dirt, because of my Lord’s building, which will make it very magnificent. Back to Brampton, and to supper and to bed.
Monday 15 July 16618th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th July 1661
15°C / 59°F
(monthly average for July 1661) About
There are no journals available for this date.
Portholme and viewed all the fields, which was very pleasant.
The fields must still be very pleasant…”Portholme Meadow, 257 acres (104 hectares), reputed to be the largest open meadow in the country Portholme is registered as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).”
http://www.huntsdc.gov.uk/root/My%20village/VillageDetail.asp?v=Brampton
From the above site it says that the landlady at the Black Bull is Goody Stanke(r)s. Could this be the first wife of Will Stankes as mentioned by Pauline (L&M) in the background info? In this her name is Joan, however Phil has shown his wife as Goody Stankes!
http://www.pepysdiary.com/p/2809.php
http://www.pepysdiary.com/p/2810.php
alles in ordnung!
Joan and Goody
Isn’t Goody like a nickname of respect, for “goodwife”? Therefore Joan and Goody could be one and the same in this case?
“Goody”
was a title like “Mrs,” but used, I believe, for people of lesser degree. Doubtless a contraction of “Goodwife.”
“…Hinchingbroke, which is now all in dirt, because of my Lord
a view of the area:Buckden on the way to Did ding ton from the Pepis place roughly 2 mile
Yes, yes, this entry too displays perhaps more poignantly than at any time the strong relationship that Sam enjoys with his family, especially his father - remember he is still a young guy, notwithstanding his evident smarts.
Wow, he is so troubled about wrestling with the details of the will, he hasn’t kept up his diary for many days - this is his brief but carefully structured attempt to get back on track with his journal - however, with his mind still awhirl with Tom Trice’s impending caveat and his mind much troubled with his aunt
“The wonderful thing about Sam is that each way he
I mean, you rawk!
Port Holme is still a fine expanse of green meadow, if you ignore the motorway cutting across one corner and the main east coast railway on another. It’s unspoilt enough to imagine how it must have looked in the 17th century. Oddly, Oxford’s Port meadow also claims to be the biggest. Confusion somewhere?
‘Port’ because they’re beside major rivers? (as water meadows often are…)
port is derived from Latin. The word was used not only for a “port” with water but also for a narrow passage between two mountains or the entrance to a place after a narrow passage.
There aren’t many mountains in Huntingdonshire or Oxfordshire, and I’m not sure a watermeadow 2 miles across would count as a narrow passage. I reckon a port for river traffic is the most likely origin - the Ouse was a major artery.
I can’t find anything on google for the Huntingdon meadow but apparently the Oxford name comes from ‘portman’ meaning burgess - i.e. the townspeople had rights over the land.
“Basic Latin Elements that All English Speakers and Readers Should Know”
see: http://www.lexfiles.com/basic-latin-l-v.html
and find:
port-, portat- (Latin: carry, bring, bear).
port- (Latin: door, gate, entrance, harbor).
(Vincente) A view of the area.
I am not sure if Vincente meant this, but if you go to the site he quotes and enter your town, for example Brampton, you get a map of the surrounding area at various scales. But if you then click on aerial view on the left hand side and enter again you can see a small view from 5000 feet. (With the prospect of buying of course)
port, portus
In the Middle Ages the term was sometimes used to indicate an important centre of trading - whether it was a port (harbour) or not. For major trade centres the term “emporium” was also used.
Holme
A Scandinavian word, commonly applied to a (very) small tributary to a river. I don’t know the exact meaning of the word, but it’s not uncommon in parts of Western Europe where Viking settlements existed. (We have a Holme near Antwerp, in Belgium, too.)
holmr
The generic holmr, together with a side-form holmi, is of frequent occurrence in Scandinavia. Etymologically the element is related to Latin culmen “peak” but it occurs in Scandinavia both independently and in place-names with two main senses: 1) “a (small) island”, 2) “raised land, often surrounded by watercourses, ditches, marshland or the like”. The related English word holm is only recorded in the senses “sea, ocean, wave” (OED) and it seems certain that the element holmr in place-names in England and Scotland is of Scandinavian origin.
The word survives in English in the form holme and is now used (1) of the small grassy islands of the Northern Isles and (as a foreign word) of islands in Scandinavia, and (2) in Scotland and the north of England of “a piece of flat low-lying ground by a river or stream, sub-merged or surrounded in time of flood”. Names first recorded in comparatively young sources may well not have been coined until after the word had been adopted as a loanword in English.
In the English and Scottish counties listed above I have found 176 names in -holmr recorded in sources from before circa 1500. Outside the areas in which there was Scandinavian settlement, the generic is only of sporadic occurrence.
Source:
http://www.ramsdale.org/dalr.htm
See also:
http://www.hull.ac.uk/php/cetag/1bdviking.htm
I had only heard of “goody” in “Goody Two Shoes”, and whaddayaknow, the whole thing (Childrens’ book anno 1765) is online !
http://malkyn.hum.dmu.ac.uk:8000/AnaServer?hockliffe+34187+imager.anv
Portholme
http://www.thenortheast.fsnet.co.uk/Place%20NameMaps.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/vikings/vid_blood.shtml
Time travel back about 1,200 years, take a map and draw a line from Liverpool to London. Everything north of that line is ruled by the Vikings until you reach Scotland which extends further south than it does today, perhaps as far as Newcastle. To the west are the native British in what is now Wales, south-west England (i.e. Cornwall and Devon) and
Port Holme; it now lies beween the rail way North / South line on the west and is surrounded by the river [ouse] on the north, east and south , On the East Bank of the Ouse lies Dvrovigvtvm {GodManchester}, I guess it has a Roman connection. There being a nice olde Roman road too, meadows do seem to be invaded by camping grounds [not Roman].
That path may be the one that the Sam and his Nag did ride on.It does seem to go from the house back door right into the meadows.
http://www.multimap.com/map/browse.cgi?client=public&X=522500&Y=270000&width=700&height=400&gride=&gridn=&srec=0&coordsys=gb&db=freegaz&addr1=&addr2=&addr3=&pc=&advanced=&local=&localinfosel=&kw=&inmap=&table=&ovtype=&scale=50000&multimap.x=488&multimap.y=162
Studying the Map and all the Annos . It is aptly named for where it is located. Another Odd ball name used in the Fens, is ‘Pimple’ meaning a hillock that very rarely gets drowned in the floods of the Wet lands. I.E. a good place to be when the local rivers really flood every couple of blu moons.
Another Goody.
According to Tomalin Sam, as a youngster, was sent away from time to time with his brother Tom, into the fresh air outside London. This was to Kingsland, where a nurse was found for the boys, and Sam remembers her as Goody Lawrence.