Suggest you backtrack on this sites emails and study that which David wrote
concerning the "Old English" possible origins of the Cat*ley name.
He went to some length on the subject and put together a very comprehensive
report which you should really read.
Regards Timcatt
----- Original Message -----
From: L L Milnes <landairwater(a)xnet.co.nz
To:
<CATLEY-L(a)rootsweb.com
Sent: Wednesday, February 01, 2006
10:46 PM
Subject: [CAT...] Does Catley come from "Goat Clearing"?
Does Catley come from "goat clearing" not "cat
clearing"?
Suggestion: Does "Catley" come from "goat clearing" rather than
"wild
cat
clearing"?
The 'ploughed up again' idea in David's letter (below) fits in well with
our
original idea of 'clearing'. The word 'cat' plus
'grassland, clearing,
ploughed land'. It got me thinking about people in earlier times, and
the
words they would have used in order to refer to another local
family.
I was muttering "cat-lea, catley" as I did so.
Then I tried saying it with a hard G sound. "Gat-lea". I did this
because, especially before the increasing standardisation of spelling in
written language in (I think) the mid-1800s, the sound K has often become
mixed up with the sound G. That's the hard G as in 'go'. (Similarly
P/B, CH/J, T/D, etc.)
Then I looked up name associations with the word CAT or GAT. I came
across 'goat' and 'gate'.
Both are alternative possible origins in my opinion of the CAT in our
family
group name.
GOAT:
Goat appears in surnames and place names a lot, and, importantly, appears
with a short "a" sound.
Gatcombe is one, meaning "goat valley".
Gateley or Gatley, another one, is said to come from "clearing with goats"
or "goats' cliff" (Herefordshire, Cheshire, Old English).
Gatwood or Gatward (found in Essex) is said to be Old English from "goat"
or
"gate", but they say earlier usages would be more likely to
be "goat" and
the later ones "gate".
GATE:
Gate, Gates (Sussex), Gatehouse (Dorset): these names are said to derive
from the idea of a gate opening and closing on a field or body of water.
GATE in an area with Danish or Norwegian settlement: the surnames people
say it might mean "road" or "street" (Old Norse).
BTW, what date was the Enclosures Act in Britain? 1837?
I speculate, just my own idle thoughts here, that the Enclosures Act,
which
fenced off open common ground into soon-to-be-privately-owned
fields,
frustrating poorer people who were trying to graze an animal or two on the
common and get a bit of meat or money for their families, would have made
a
"GATE" a very significant landmark at that time. (I am
thinking of
possible dialogues of the time. "Where does he live?" "By the
ploughed
land with the gate." Or (more unpleasantly): "Who is he?"
"He's that
corrupt horrible person who greased up to the local lord and as a
consequence now llives on the new-ploughed land with the new gate on it,
the
same common land we used to graze our sheep on, but now we can't,
so our
children haven't tasted meat for four months. Gate-lea."
YATE:
Then there is Yate, meaning gate or gap. Apparently in Old English the
singular had a Y but the plural was sounded as a hard G. So, it sounds
like one Yate, but two Gates. This crops up in surnames and placenames
in
Glos, Lancs, Ches, Derbys, Staffs, Salop, Herefords and Bucks. (I
speculate that Bill Gates' ancestors were also rich, then, because they
had
more than one gate on their house.) Of course we also have Yates as
a
surname today, but this might be a corruption of the OE usage. Otherwise
it would have been Gates, not Yates.
My opinion: "goat" is more likely than "gate", because it has the
short
"a" sound like "cat".
Gatley. Gatcombe. Catley. Quite different from Gates-Yate-Gaitley.
So how about "the cleared land where the goats are"?
Catley would then mean "goat clearing".
This makes a lot more sense to me, as a country-dweller myself, goats
being
valuable grazing animals and much more significant markers, than
"cat
clearing". Cats move around too fast. Nobody sensible would name a
family
because of nearby occasionally-seen wild cats, would they, when more
meaningful markers were available. Life was tough. Goats, yes, they
counted. Cats did not.
Lyn Milnes
in
New Zealand
----- Original Message -----
From: "Meredith-Fam-Hist" <meredith_meredith(a)ntlworld.com
To: <CATLEY-L(a)rootsweb.com
Sent:
Thursday, February 02, 2006 6:43 AM
Subject: Re: [CAT...] Tofts
> In the course of looking-up the 'Toft' and 'Bovate' references I
browsed
> other
> 'lad terms' and noted the following:
> Source: The Local Historian's Encyclopedia, by John
Richardson. (ISBN 0
> 9503656
> 7 X)
> 'Lea': Grassland, but quite often arable land
newly laid for pasture
and
> then
> ploughed up again. Atlernatively spelt lay, leah, lee, 'ley'.
> Having visited the Catley Priory site, I wonder......
> David Meredith
> Nottingham, ENG
>
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