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“Cole” and “Cold” in Place-Names (12 S. xi. 404, 454).—In the notes on “Coldharbour,” and even in Mr. Alfred Watkins’s interesting and exhaustive paper, one or two points have escaped mention which would be worth consideration. I premise, of course, that all “cole” and “cold” prefixes are not from the same root.
(i). “Cold” in Coldharbour may not, in all cases, connote coldness, i.e., frigidity; it may be a contraction of the old British word collaid which Dr. Mackay gives us for “storm, tempest, turmoil.” Men and pack-animals would need storm refuges both near the great roads and in the open country.
(ii). “Harbour” need not, in all cases, have been a refuge or shelter. It may have been “herber,” pronounced “harber,” but meaning a herb garden. I do not dwell upon the suggestive word “cole” or “colewort” in connection with this “herber,” or cabbage-patch—it might be considered flippant; but there are two “Coldharbour” farms in Kent, and also a “Jew’s Harbour” in Northants, which was not a rural Ghetto, but probably some Hebrew doctor’s herb-plot.
(iii). Then there is the suggestion that, in some localities at least, the old British word, or root, “col”
or “cole” (allied to “coln”) signified water or a watery place. An article some years ago in
‘Arch. Cantiana gave examples. The family name of Colepepper was that of the water-pepper from which
peppermint was produced, and Colebrook, Colewell, Colebridde (duplications like “waterbrooks,” “Waterford,” well-spring,” etc.), had nothing to do
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with coal or even charcoal. Colespike and Coleshill would not derive from a watery source, but perhaps from
“Col,” the ridge or pass; while if “Colman” was a charcoal-burner, he may also have been the
useful functionary who distributed in townships the nearest water-supply, and “Cole-prophet” need not have
suggested “false” or “black,” but “water-prophet,” or diviner. Whether
Coleharbour in some cases connoted to “shelter with water” for man and beast is a rash and hazardous
speculation on which I will not venture.
Percy Hulburd.
The list given does not include Coleorton (or Cole Orton), Leicestershire, thus noticed in Curtis’s ‘Topographical History of the County of Leicester’ (1831),
Coleorton has for ages been celebrated for its extensive Coal mines, which furnished the principal supply of the neighbourhood till within the last few years [etc.]
There is similarity between Coleorton and Cold Overton in the same county, in that Curtis gives “Ovretone”
as an alternative name to each of them; but any suggestion arising from mineral wealth has no application to Cold
Overton, which is on the far side of the county, and purely agricultural.
W. B. H.
Source info: MS note “N & Q Dec 16 1922”; checked in library.