Many thanks for all the replies. I think Peter answers my question. Perhaps the answer is that when the Norsemen invaded the north and the east of England from the 9th century onwards which ties in with your date of 800, Derbyshire became part of the Danelaw centred around the five towns of Lincoln, Stamford, Leicester, Nottingham and Derby. The southern part of the leadmining field of the Peak District lay in the Soke and Wapentake of Wirksworth, there were rich lead mines there owned (from memory) by the Abbess of Repton. Perhaps the fathom measurement was introduced into the area by the invaders and used as you say in Derbyshire before Cornwall. Nellie Kirkham certainly shared your view and said of the Derbyshire miners who were sent to work in the Devon mines in the fourteenth century, that it was the Derbyshire miners who influenced the Devon and Cornish miners, the result being that mining terms used in Devon and Cornwall are in English and not Celtic.
Interestingly when I was taught to sew in my early youth by my Mum and Granny, they told me that if I hadn't a tape measure or yard stick to measure a yard of material from a bolt of cloth, I was to hold the end to my nose and measure a length from there to the end of my outstretched arm and that would be roughly a yard (half a fathom). I've done this most of my life.
Margaret Howard
|