Terrific idea, and such interesting detail. Thanks David. I am now
muttering "cat-isle-y" (isle-y as in island) to myself.
Do we have traces of the name pre-Anglo Saxon times, I wonder?
Of course this could be the local way for this district that this particular
name evolved. Other districts may have arrived at the same name in
different ways.
Lyn Milnes
----- Original Message -----
From: "Meredith-Fam-Hist" <meredith_meredith(a)ntlworld.com>
To: <CATLEY-L(a)rootsweb.com>
Sent: Saturday, February 04, 2006 7:49 AM
Subject: [CAT...] The Catley name
'Catley Priory' revisited:
The Catley site is a piece of elevated land, perhaps the size of a couple
of football pitches' which was annexed from a rather larger elevated
marrow-shaped land mass running north-south comprising the villages of
Billinghay, Walcott, Thorpe Tinley and couple more which together were
surrounded by low lying marsh/peat land.
We know that the site was given over to the Gilbertine's in the time of
King Stephen by the Lord of the Manor of nearby Billinghay. It is
unclear as to whether there was any human occupation by way of a
settlement either at the time of, or prior to, the grant of this land to
the monks. Certainly it was the site of a Neolithic or iron age burial
ground, as per the 'barrow' that has been found there along with evidence
of a causeway linking it with Walcott to the east and Digby to the west.
I rather thought that such burial grounds tended to be set aside from the
main settlement, being a revered place to visit as opposed to one of
habitation, but of course settlement may have occurred much later. If we
chose to go down this road then we might suggest an Anglo-Saxon presence
at some point in time, because certainly neighbouring Walcott had one.
Much has been muted as to the origins and meanings of the Catley place
name, or perhaps more correctly in the case of the Lincolnshire example we
should say location name. Given that this area was effectively sitting on
top of a marshy water-logged bog, surely this rules out the presence of
our feline friend the 'Cat'!
Despite the question mark over actual habitation, I am inclined to
substitute the Anglo-Saxon male name of 'Cata' to perhaps give us 'Cata's
Island' as a viable derivative.
David Meredith
Nottingham, ENG
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