ESSEX RIVERS AND THEIR NAMES.
291
The Chelmer, unlike many of our other Essex rivers, bears
one name only from its source to the sea, if its estuary may be
regarded as the sea. Moreover, that name is undoubtedly
fairly ancient, as it is used by Saxton (1579), Norden (1594),
Speed (1610), and other early writers. It has been held commonly
that, at the spot where the town of Chelmsford now is, there was,
in Saxon times, a ford through the river, which ford belonged to a
Saxon owner named Ceolmaer: hence Ceolmaer's-ford, later
Chelmsford. The name appears several times as "Celmeresfort"
in Domesday Book (1086).58 It is true that Ceolmaer is a known
Saxon name59 ; but there is no evidence that Chelmsford has
derived its name from anyone so called or that anyone so called
ever owned a ford at what is now known as Chelmsford. That
there was a ford there and that the town of Chelmsford has
grown up at it, and got its name from it, is undeniable ; but
I submit that the derivation of the name Chelmsford hitherto
accepted is erroneous and that there was never, until recent times,
any river known as the Chelmer. I suggest that the original
name of the river now so called was Keltic—the Chel or Kel.60
If there is in Britain to-day no other well-known river of that name,
there are rivers with similar names and many places the names
of which begin with Chel or Kel and have not improbably taken
their names from rivers formerly so called.61 As to the second
element of the name Celmeresford (namely mere), it is readily
explainable ; for it is easy to see to-day that anciently the valley
of the river, both above and below the town, but especially
the latter, must have been a vast swamp or mere (O.E., mere,
a mere or bog). Thus, the river-side meadows in the valley
between Broomfield and Springfield, above the town, were clearly
such, as also were the much-more-extensive levels, known as
Baddow Meads and Cuton Meads, below the town. Both
flood to-day very readily after heavy rain. But, between these
two meres, where the town of Chelmsford now is, there exists
a spot at which the valley is comparatively narrow, affording a.
fairly-easy fording-place—the ford through the mere of the Chel,
58 The rhyming charter purporting to be a grant from King Edward the Confessor to one-
Randolph Peperkin of the Hundreds of Chelmsford and Dengie, which has been printed so often,
is well known to be a spurious concoction of much later date.
59 See Searle, Onomasticon Saxonicum, p. 130 (1897).
60 In Saxon times, the pronunciation would have been Kel.
61 Such are Chelborough (Dorset), Chelwood (Somerset), Cheltenham (Gloucestershire),
Chelsworth (Suffolk), Chelsfield (Kent), Chelford (Cheshire), Chelmarsh (Shropshire), Kelbrook
(Yorks), Kelburn (Ayrshire),Kello (a stream, Dumfriesshire), Kelly (a stream, Ayrshire), Kelsall
(Suffolk and Herts), and a host of others.