Beggars Bush: A Perambulation through the Disciplines of History, Geography, Archaeology, Literature, Philology, Natural History, Botany, Biography & Beggary

Frome West Woodlands Somerset Beggars Bush 1605

A Perambulation of West Woodlands, 1605-1606 has Beggars Bush as a location on the boundary of West Woodlands. (SRO D.615, copy Frome Museum). The perambulation records going up the Broadway towards Cottles Oak, turning at White Cross “along the Way that leadeth Southwards towards Marston and so along the said Way unto Beggars Bush and then along the Way South cross the way that goeth over to Tytherington”.

Many of these locations are identifiable today; White Cross must be the junction of Broadway with Portland Road, so Beggars Bush must be somewhere along Portland Road, Dommetts Lane, Green Lane and Marston Lane, which form a continuous route across the headland of the West Field. The location was probably at Dommetts Lane.
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Posted: March 13th, 2011 | Filed under: Places | Tags: , , , , , , | No Comments »


Andover Hampshire Beggars Bush 1621

John Taylor, the Water Poet, in the dedication to his The Praise, Antiquity and Commodity of Beggary, Beggars & begging, etc.  (1621) refers to “Beggars Bush, neere Andever, or to his Hawthorne brother within a mile of Huntingdon”. The second is clearly the Beggars Bush at Godmanchester, which is the most well known, probably through Saxton’s map.  The first “neere Andever” is a mystery.

It must refer to Andover, Hampshire. However, I can trace no Beggars Bush site in or near Andover, nor can Hampshire Record Office. It may have been a name for a minor location only used briefly. There is at Andover a Coldharbour a similar derogatory place name often found near Beggars Bushes. East of that and on the south side of London Road is a Folly Copse and an area now named Round Bush Copse.
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Posted: March 13th, 2011 | Filed under: Places | Tags: , , , , , , | No Comments »