jan 1, 1411 - carr

Description:

Wet boggy ground where willows and alders flourished; land lying partly or seasonally under water. Such areas were part of a managed landscape in which they had special functions and the precise meaning varied from one region to another: 1411-2 <i>harundines</i> [reeds] <i>in lez kerres</i>, Eastoft (YRS118/40); 1540 <i>totam piscariam ... de Dame et de lez Carres</i>, Selby (YRS13/357); 1573 <i>John Bower for his house being open upon the carr we fine him iiijd,</i> Doncaster (YAJ35/296); 1619-21 <i>thence west unto a carre or flashe of water</i>, Skelton (NRR1/55). The carrs were contrasted with ‘hard land’: 1642 <i>In a moist yeare hardlande-grasse prooveth better then Carres or Ing-growndes</i>, Elmswell (DW34); 1699 <i>I sett the fence ... & separated all the carrs from the hard land</i>, Scalm Park (YAJ7/48). It is an element in numerous minor place-names, mostly as a generic [<i>kjarr</i>], from <i>c</i>.1200 (PNWR7/215). For example, 1284 <i>in tota illa placia bosci et marisci que vocatur comun ker</i>, Bolton by Bowland (YRS87/124).

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