Tinbern barrow
Joel S. Berson
Berson at ATT.NET
Fri Aug 14 23:50:25 UTC 2009
You've probably thought of this already, but just in case: might
this be "Tyburn barrow"? Something upon which hanged prisoners were
carried off from the gallows? Nothing in Google or Google Books, though.
Joel
At 8/14/2009 05:54 PM, Peter Grund wrote:
>"barrow" (Somerset 1707)
>
>on her oath saith that Barnabas Eiles of Chilthorne did on the 2 of
>^{this Instant} January last about 10 of the Clock in the night come
>^{into} her house ^{& broke[n] open the door of it being then barred
>with a Timbern barrow} and went to the beddside and vnbuttned his britches
>
>It could technically be a barrow in OED's sense of 'A utensil for
>the carrying of a load by two or more men; a stretcher, a bier;
>spec. a flat rectangular frame of transverse bars, having shafts or
>'trams' before and behind, by which it is carried,' but perhaps
>there is also an extended meaning to a wooden structure (bar?) that
>would bar a door? The reading could also be "Carrow" (capital 'C'
>and 'b' being virtually indistinguishable in this particular hand),
>though this seems less likely as we cannot find such a word attested
>in any dictionaries with an appropriate meaning.
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