The present 'Pilch Fields' nature reserve appears to have a triangular
shape. http://www.ocv.org.uk/sites.php?id=8
Geoff Tann
----- Original Message -----
From: "Matt Tompkins" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, January 20, 2012 1:24 PM
Subject: [EPNL] Pilch Farm, Adstock
I have been asked if I can explain the name Pilch which has been applied to
various parts of the landscape in the northern part of the parish of Adstock
in Buckinghamshire. There are presently a Pilch Farm, Pilch Lane and a
Pilch Field nature reserve. The farm and field, and possibly even the lane,
are post-enclosure features of the landscape (the parish was enclosed in
1798), but the name is older than that - the VCH Buckinghamshire says the
enclosure map mentions a pre-existing Pilch Common, and Browne Willis’
History and Antiquities of the Town, Hundred and Deaconry of Buckingham, p.
126, quotes a 1703 glebe terrier which describes one of the parish’s three
open fields as ‘Middle or Pilch Field’.
Pilch is a surname, but it seems unlikely that any landscape feature so
large as a pre-enclosure open field would be named after an individual (and
anyway a quick skim through some nominal lists has not revealed a single
occurrence of the surname anywhere in Buckinghamshire, let alone Adstock
itself).
As a word 'pilch' has had various meanings, most of them now obsolete: to
pilfer; skin or hide; an outer garment of leather, often with the fur still
on, or of some rough material; a triangular wrapper of flannel, wool, etc.,
worn over a baby's nappy; and a rough covering for a saddle, or a light
frameless saddle. None of these seems likely to have been used to describe
a part of the landscape.
Any ideas?
Matt Tompkins
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