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COLD HARBOUR, CROYDON.

209

seem to point out this spot as one marked by something more conspicuous, or more durable, than lines of encampment. (Archæologia, vol. 31, p. 120.)

That something Admiral Smythe (Ibid. p. 128) is inclined to believe to be a mere vestige of the once almost universal Ophite^[1] Worship, the accurate history of which still continues to be a desideratum in archæology.

I do not feel inclined to do more than refer to the Arbour Lows of Derbyshire as having some possible connection with our Cold Harbours. Thus, near Middleton is to be found, says Davies in his "Derbyshire" (p. 581), one of the most remarkable of our county's monuments of antiquity; this is the Arbe-lous or Arbor-lows,^[2] a circle of stones within which the ancient British bards were accustomed to hold their assemblies. Supposing that there was a connection between these, then Col-Arbor-lows might intend a chief place at which, near to some raised mound or monument, the ancient bards of the Cymri, in remote ages, held their meetings;^[3] and if so, then we have here, within a very few hundred yards of each other, three names probably indicating the

↑ The worship of the serpent (Coluber) was common to the ancient Scandinavians and other nations. Pliny, when speaking of the Druids, alludes to their stories and charlatanery about the serpent's egg.—(Lib. xxix. cap. 3.)
↑ Lowe, loe, comes from the hleap, or hill; heap, or barrow; and so the Gothic hlaiw is a monument or barrow.—(Gibson's Camden.)—Todd.
↑ Mr. Pegge (Archæologia, vol. vii. p. 140), in speaking of the ancient British "Lows," and especially of the "Arbour Lows," near Bakewell, alludes to the Arbour-Low-close, near Okeover, in Staffordshire (Plott's Staffordshire, p. 404). Pegge thinks that the name is derived from the British word arar, a hero, and low, a mount or tumulus, and he concludes (Ibid. p. 147) that the monument in question must either be a sepulchre or a temple, and that the probability is that Arbour-Lows must have been a temple—a holy enclosure, not to be profaned or defiled.

[1] The worship of the serpent (Coluber) was common to the ancient Scandinavians and other nations. Pliny, when speaking of the Druids, alludes to their stories and charlatanery about the serpent's egg.—(Lib. xxix. cap. 3.)

[2] Lowe, loe, comes from the hleap, or hill; heap, or barrow; and so the Gothic hlaiw is a monument or barrow.—(Gibson's Camden.)—Todd.

[3] Mr. Pegge (Archæologia, vol. vii. p. 140), in speaking of the ancient British "Lows," and especially of the "Arbour Lows," near Bakewell, alludes to the Arbour-Low-close, near Okeover, in Staffordshire (Plott's Staffordshire, p. 404). Pegge thinks that the name is derived from the British word arar, a hero, and low, a mount or tumulus, and he concludes (Ibid. p. 147) that the monument in question must either be a sepulchre or a temple, and that the probability is that Arbour-Lows must have been a temple—a holy enclosure, not to be profaned or defiled.

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