"Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour's landmark." (Deut. xxvii. 17. Commination.)
Some remarkable instances of minute descriptions of landmarks are afforded by the grants of Friðwald, King Ælfred (the Great, or, as he is called in one of the charters, the wise king), and Edward the Confessor, to Chertsey Abbey.
The charters of Friðwald and Ælfred are without dates, but Friðwald's charter is placed by Mr. Manning in A.D. 666,[1] and by Mr. Kemble before 675. The grant by Kiug Ælfred is placed by Mr. Kemble between two grants, dated respectively 889 and 891, and that of King Edward the Confessor in 1062.
The charters are in Latin, but the descriptions of the land-limits are (as usual) in the Anglo-Saxon language.
The boundaries of Chertsey and Thorpe, as set forth in the Charter of King Ælfred, comprehend the manors of Crocford and Woodham, which the boundary as described in the Charter of Friðwald omits; but in the last-mentioned charter the boundaries of Egham and Chobham are given, which are not contained in Ælfred's grant.
These charters were printed in the "Monasticon,"[2] and in the "Codex Diplomaticus," from a MS. in the Cottonian Library at the British Museum, written, as supposed, about the time of King Stephen; and the English or Anglo-Saxon is very corrupt; which increases the difficulty of rendering it into modern English, and will, I trust, afford an apology for the numerous imperfections of the following notes.
My scanty knowledge of the modern local names has been derived chiefly from three maps of the county of
