124 THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
concentration near the localities indicated as bearing a clear
centuriation pattern.
Comparatively blank spaces occur in this place-name dis-
tribution in the areas around Colchester and Barstable—
districts appearing heavily settled in Romano-British times.
Perhaps the invaders may here have been kept at bay for some
time by the British inhabitants, or the former may have peace-
fully superseded the Roman as a landlord, adopting the existing
nomenclature. The apparent occurrence of Celtic elements
in the place-names of these regions may indicate either possi-
bility, and since the areas were highly populated in Norman
times we may preclude the possibility of their desolation and
reconquest by the forest in early Saxon times.
The second period Saxon place-name endings,5 whilst re-
peating the same features to a limited extent in their distribution,
indicate a greater concentration within the Boulder Clay and
eastern London Clay areas.
From these two place-name distributions we may draw
some conclusions as to the state of the forest in Saxon times.
It would appear that the Saxons continued the work, begun in
a slighter measure by the La Tene III. people, of clearing the
woodland. They seem to have rapidly settled the three light
soil areas and the eastern London Clay, and had actively begun
to clear the Boulder Clay forest.
Collingwood, Wheeler and others, apparently forming their
opinion from Latin accounts of the Saxons' Teutonic forbears,
hold that the Saxon was both able and desirous of clearing
wooded country and settling thereon. The Saxons in Essex
certainly appear to have behaved in such a way. Thus whilst the
La Tene III. people began a great clearing movement into the
scantily wooded eastern London Clay, the Saxons inaugurated
a similar movement into the more heavily forested Boulder
Clay; the new invaders presumably settling the already cleared
land in their first advance.
The numerous Saxon place-names relating to vegetational
conditions suggested the possibility of tracing the bound; of
the Forest on the evidence that these names afford (Fig. 4).
Plotting both Saxon place-names meaning forest (weald, etc.)
and those denoting open country (field, etc.), the woodland areas
5 Viz. -don, stead, ley, etc.