CONCERNING CERTAIN ESSEX RIVERS. 115
through Lion Fields, in which All Saints' Church stands, "Guithavon
Street;" while the adjacent valley became known as "Guithavon
Valley." If this be so, it is somewhat amusing to find that in the
"Memoirs" of the last geological survey of Essex (No. 47), the
valley of the river is called the "Guith Valley." The recent inno-
vation is here adopted in good faith as the genuine nomenclature of
the stream. In an admirable map in my possession, dated 1824,
I find that the river there figures as "Pod's Brook," which rises
at Coney Green, about a mile from Great Bardfield, and enters the
Pant, after running its course, as already indicated, at the Witham
Meads. The oldest maps adopt a similar nomenclature. The
name "Brain" is of modern origin. The stream is figured as the
Brain in the map appended to "White's History of Essex," and in
the recent map of the Ordnance Survey. It is said, however, that
the surveyors were hunting about for a name for it, although in the
previous Ordnance map it is denominated "Pod's Brook." There
is not the shadow of reason for departing from the time-honoured
name. "Pod's Brook" let it be. It has been advisedly said above
that it enters the Pant at the Witham Meads ; for although this
river is now almost invariably known as the Blackwater, despite its
figuring as the Pant or Blackwater in nearly every map, there can be
no doubt that the former is the original name. The river, as is
well known, rises at Radwinter, and flowing through Bocking, Stisted,
Coggeshall, Kelvedon, the Braxteds, and Witham, blends with the
tidal river, partly at Heybridge Mill and partly by the Canal below
Fullbridge. Now it can be shown conclusively from various writers
that at a very early date the river was known as the Pant, both at its
source and its mouth. I adduce first a quotation from Bede's
Ecclesiastical History, ch. 22. Bede wrote this book in 738
A.D. The historian is commenting on the appointment of
Cedd, an Evangelistic bishop, who ministered "Maxime in civitate
quoe lingua Saxonum, Ithancestir" (Bradwell-on-Sea), "appellatur
sed (etiam) in ilia quae Tilaburg cognominatur, quorum prior locus est
in ripa Pente amnis." And again in the "Chronicles of Ralph de
Coggeshall," published about 1210 A.D., we read "Civitas Stan-
caster (Ithancester) stetit super ripam rivoir de Pante currentis per
Maldunum." Camden also, in his "Britannia," 1590 A.D., quoting
from Ralph Niger from Bede the passage already cited, says, "I
cannot exactly point out the place ('Ithancester, the engulphed
city'), but that the River Froshwell was heretofore called the Pant
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