298
THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
more stony than the bed of the other, close adjacent, is not
clear. From Yeldham, the Colne continues through the
Hedinghams, Halstead, the Colnes, Lexden, Colchester, and Wy-
venhoe, to Brightlingsea, where its estuary combines with that
of the Blackwater and both enter the sea together.
The name Colne is now that of the river from its source
to the sea. It is undoubtedly ancient, and is given by most
of the early Essex writers and cartographers already mentioned.
There is a temptation to derive it from the fact that Colchester
was a Roman Colonia ; but there can be little doubt that the
name of the river is from some Keltic root and is, therefore, far
older than that of the town ; for the name of the town
(Colnceastre, the Camp on the Colne) is Saxon. It is possible that
the river derived its name from the four villages named Colne
(Earl's Colne, Wake's Colne, White Colne, and Colne Engaine :
all "Colun" in Domesday Book) which lie on it, eight or ten
miles above Colchester.83
Colne is a fairly-common English river-name. There are
examples, for instance, in Hertfordshire, Huntingdonshire,
Gloucestershire, and Lancashire, as well as a place called Colne-
brook (doubtless from some stream on which it is situated), in
Buckinghamshire.
(18).—The Roman River (length about 11 miles) is a tribu-
tary of the Colne, which it joins almost at its mouth. It rises
a mile or so west of Tey-brook Farm, in Great Tey, and flows
south-eastward, with a sinuous, but fairly-direct, course, through
Copford, under Heckford Bridge (in Birch), past Abberton and
Fingringhoe, to the Colne opposite Wyvenhoe. It thus passes
through a piece of country, lying south-east from Colchester,
in which Roman remains of various kinds abound : hence, file-
name "Roman River." The name is not altogether modern ;
for it appears on Chapman & Andre's Map of 1777. By whom it
was bestowed, I know not.
(19).—The Stour (length about 52 miles, but about 43 miles
only in or adjoining Essex) does not rise in Essex, but forms a
longer portion of the county boundary than any other river, not
even excepting the Thames. It rises near Brinkley, in Suffolk; and,
flowing south-eastward, reaches the boundary of Essex at Sturmer
83 The reported appearance of the form "Colne" in a will of 958 (see Kemble, Codex, vi.
p. II) is probably due to a copyist's error or a misprint.