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Gentleman's Magazine 1755 p.272
Mr URBAN,
THE first conception, in investigating the original of the
names Maiden-Castle, Maiden-Way, and
Maiden-Hold, in the county of Westmoreland, in
answer to your correspondent's quere, p.198, is this, that
the first and last places being apparently places of
strength, as may be judged by their names, which import a
fortification of some kind, might be so called from their
impregnability, as never having been taken by an enemy; just
as we read in Hall's Chronicles, that over the one of
the gates of the city of Tournay, Temp. Henry VIII.
was written Jamais ton ne a perdue ton pucellage,
Thou hast never lost thy maidenhead. And as the motto
of Waterford in Ireland formerly imported,
Intacta manet Waterfordia, where intacta means
virginea, as Hor. Od. i. 7. and Juv.
vi. 163, & annot Ovid Art. Am. i. 677. But then
this interpretation is not so applicable to a road, or the
Maiden-way, the other place mentioned in the query,
wherefore admitting, upon the suggestion of the proposer,
that all three places were known to the Romans, I
rather incline to think, that the first part of these
compounds may be of a British original; that the
ancient Britons in their time had been settled in
these places; that the Romans, upon theur arrival,
finding them proper stations, and ready to their hands,
continued to make use of them, and retained the
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