ESSEX RIVERS AND THEIR NAMES.
297
rises close to Long Green, just south-west of Great Bard-
field, and flows south-eastward throughout its entire course,
except for a sudden curve northwards just south of Braintree.
It passes through Great Saling, Rayne, Braintree, the Notleys,
and Faulkbourne, to Witham, where it joins the Blackwater.
Its proper name is doubtful. Harrison (1587), who describes
its course accurately,80 calls it the "Barus," but I have no idea
whence he got so strange a name, which is used by no other
writer. Chapman and Andre (1777) name it "Pod's Brook."81
In the present day, it seems to be known as Pod's Brook above
Braintree and as the Brain below that town, and is so shown
on the Ordnance Maps. The name "Brain" is a very-modern
and particularly-absurd back-formation ; for it is evidently
taken from the name of the town of Braintree, which is certainly
a corruption. In Domesday (1086), it is "Branchtree" ; but
this is, I suggest, an error of the Domesday scribe for either
Brandtree (from O.E. brand or broad, burnt, a d being easily
misread as ch) or Brantree (from O.E. brant, high or elevated).
The tree in question was, I suggest, some large ancient tree,
perhaps blasted by fire, standing very prominently close to the
site of the present water-tower on the ridge of high ground on
which Braintree is built. This tree was probably a landmark
towards which the two important Roman roads which cross
exactly at this spot were constructed. Logically, therefore,
the river should have been back-named, not the Brain, but the
Branch, Brand, Brant, or Brank ! 82
(17).—The Colne (length about 33 miles) is yet another of
those five rivers which rise on the remarkable watershed near
Wimbish. It rises in the park of Moyns, in Birdbrook, whence
it flows, with a fairly-direct course, south-eastward to the sea.
Birdbrook (Bridebroc in Domesday Book, i.e. the Bird-brook)
doubtless derives the second element of its name from the fact
of the river rising within it. At Great Yeldham, about four
miles from its source, the Colne receives a stream of almost-
equal length rising close at hand, at Stambourne Green, in
Stambourne. This place appears in Domesday Book as Stan-
burn (that is, Stony-brook) ; but why its bed should have been
80 Op. cit., i., p. 107 (1587).
81 Who Pod was, I know not. There is a Pods wood in Messing.
82 In 1515, Braintree is called "Branktree" in a Charter now in the British Museum
Add. Ch. 40741).