Pamber, Hampshire Beggars Bush Coppice 1838
The name is listed in the Tithe Apportionment, along with other named coppices, forming part of Pamber Forest.
The current OS Map shows a Beggars Bridge Copse, at the northern end of the present forest, east of Tadley and north of an old Portway. This is consistent with the location of Beggars Bush Coppice within the survey and likely to be the same place.
Source
The North Hampshire Tithe Map Project
Posted: October 9th, 2011 | Filed under: Places | Tags: Hampshire, errors | 2 Comments »
This name first appeared on the 1826 Enclosure Map, which is probably the source for the Tithe reference. In a 1615 Perambulation of Pamber it is written as Beggar’s Bridge, as it is in a 1653 Silchester reference, and in the Englefield Estate records for Pamber in 1720, and from 1759 to 1816, and on the modern OS maps. The ‘bridge’ was perhaps a sardonic reference to the former stepping stones across the stream, that forms the parish boundary with Silchester, before these were replaced by a wooden bridge. This was quite a remote spot in a poor rural area until the advent of nearby housing development in 1960.
That looks fairly conclusive. I’ve now tagged this as an ‘error’, together with Kensington & Acton and Belfast.
The error may indicate the attraction of the phrase. G. Salgado The Elizabethan Underworld (London, 1977) quotes an unidentified bishop, describing the various villainies in the old St. Pauls, as saying these are so notorious that they “are so well knowen to all menne as the beggar knows his bush”. Salgado gives no source for this. The Archivist of St Paul’s was kind enough to confirm that the original quotation was James Pilkington, Bishop of Durham, but that Salgado’s reference was a misquotation, and the original reference was not to “bush” but “dish”.
There are a number of Beggars Bridges – the suggestion that the original here was not a bridge is consistent with the usage of beggars being ironic.