|
Home
Pearsall Surname Project
Number of Pearsalls By Location
Maps by Family
Surname
History and Genealogy
of the Pearsall Family in England
and America:
Volume I
Front Cover
Inside Front Cover
The Motive
Thanks
Illustrations
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Appendix I
Volume II
Volume III
|
|
the shiel or shelter of King Peada,
later corrupted into Peshale to distinguish it
from the castle of his brother, King Wulfhere.
The latter built himself a castle or manor within two miles of Peshale and later in 670 he founded and erected the
priory of Stone still a mile further east, and evidently here he was also
only carrying out the primary intentions of King Peada.
The remains of King Wulfhere's castle were
still visible as late as 1542. This Byri
(Bowery) Hall stood on a rock by a brookside,
whence appeareth, says John Leland, father of
British topographers, in 1542 great dykes and squared stones. It is a
mile from Stone towards the Marches.
[Counties of England,
by P. H. Ditchfield, vol. 1, page 230.] All of
which is still further confirmed by Walter Chetwynd
in his history of Pirehill Hundred in Stafford,
wherein he says-Within Darlaston on the top of
a rising ground the marks of some fortifications are yet visible. The
tradition is that here was once the seat of Wulfere,
King of Mercia, which, beside some other authorities, has this to confirm
it, that Rob. de Suggenhull,
and Petronilla his wife gave a message and
certain lands to the Priory of Stone, lying within Darlaston
and adjoining to the hill called "Wulferecestre."
Darlaston is in the parish of Stone, and
Hundred of Pirehill. [Hist.
Coll. of Staff. vol. 12, page 100.]
See also Place
Names of Cumberland by Walter John Sedgefield,
Professor of English Language in the University of Manchester, England,
1915, where it is shown that the same meaning of temporary shelter occurs
in the Norman word Skjol, a shelter cave; in
dialect it occurs in Shiel, Sheil,
and shield which means a hut, shed, cottage, a temporary shelter erected
for the use of a shepherd during the summer months. A peculiarity of this
word is that it seems to have its meaning modified by association. In
connection with a fisherman it is a hut, as to a farmer, it is a shed, as
to a shepherd, it is a tent, but always it is a temporary shelter. It is
easy to see therefore that the meaning of the last element in Peshale is governed by the value of the first or
other element, with which it is associated in word building. With this
thought in mind, it is easy to make an accurate definition of the word Peshale, namely King Peada's
shelter.
The second
element shale is pronounced as though it were written sail. It should
have been pointed out, in stating the phonetic equivalent of the first
element, that Staffordshire-Shropshire is the land of Cockney English. The place where
the old clipt dialect with its broad drawl has
survived even to the present day. It seems almost unnecessary to state
that in this dialect the letter h is valueless. These Shropshire folk knew their defect and
were willing to joke about it. The learned Dr. Skeat, a great English
lexicographer, who did not use the sound of a in his own name, in a
letter to Dr. Murray of Oxford, a well
known and learned Shropshire
man, said:
And
you laugh ha! ha! defying fate
As
you tackle the terrible aspirate;
The
H that appals the cockney crew,
Lancashire,
Essex, and Shropshire
too.
To which Dr.
Murray replied:
Professor
S. Keat will have his fling,
And
say what he likes about any thing;
But
"poor letter H" in its real state,
|
|