296 THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
name appears to have been in use long before the name
Blackwater. The latter name has been held by some writers to
belong to the estuary only, which is never now-a-days spoken of as
the Pant Estuary ; and, from what Harrison says, it is clear
that, in 1586, the river was known as either the Pant or Frosh-
well from its junction with the Froshwell (whichever stream that
may be) "to the Blackwater" (by which he clearly meant to
the estuary). Yet it is clear that the estuary was not originally
called the Blackwater ; for the records of the seventh and
tenth centuries quoted above show clearly that anciently it was
called the. Pant or Pent.77 On the whole, one is driven to the
conclusion that the name Blackwater, as applied to the river in
recent times, originated, for some reason, at the hamlet of that
name mentioned above, whence it spread both up and down
the river.78
It is worth noting that the name "Blackwater" was not
derived from the blackness of the water of the river, but, on the
contrary, from its brightness and clearness : not from O.E.
blaec, black, but from O.E. blac, having the meaning indicated.
There are throughout the British Isles, many rivers (mostly in
the nature of estuaries) bearing the name Blackwater, as in the
Isle of Wight, Hampshire, Derbyshire, and Worcestershire. In
Scotland and Ireland, such are so numerous and widespread as
to suggest that there the name may be derived from some Keltic
root.
It is interesting, too, to note that the estuary, at least, had
a name long before it was called either Pant or Blackwater ;
for it is clearly the large opening called "Idumanius flu." on
Ptolemy's Map of "Albion" (about A.D. 150). Dr. Henry
Bradley has suggested that this name may have been derived
from the Keltic domum, deep.79
(16).—The Brain or Pod's Brook (length about 14 miles)
77 One wonders whether it may not have been so called from the fact that its waters are
much enclosed, shut in, and pent up, from the old word pent, having that meaning, its mouth
being somewhat narrow.
78 In any case, the name Pant can have no connection with the parish of Pentlow, as sur-
mised by both McClure (Brit. Place-Names, p. 276 n. : 1910), and Johnston (Place-Names of Engl.
& Wales, p. 398 : 1915) ; for that parish is on the Stour and more than twelve miles from any
part of the Pant. This absurd suggestion has since been adopted by other writers, as the Rev.
T. G. Browne (Conversion of the Heptarchy, p. 147 : 1896). More conceivable is a connection
with the parish of Panfield, past which the Pant flows ; but the Domesday form of the name
Penfeld) is against even this.
79 See Archaeologia, xlviii., p. 388 (1885). The name appears, as late as 1713, on Over-
ton's Map of Essex.