Where to start? Well, it would be great to start at the begining – but who knows when and what that was? When was Veddw actually the presumed original, bedw? I don’t know what bedw would be in old Welsh but here’s the modern version:

We can forget the birching, I hope.

The difficulty, if it really is one, is that people try to establish the correct spelling and, given that we are in Wales, find Veddw problematic. But it was the name of the settlement and of our house (Veddw House) when we arrived 33 years ago. And, perhaps more to the point, there were no settled spellings of anything much until relatively recently. So we have stayed with Veddw. And don’t forget the added complication, that we are on the Welsh border.

Let’s give up on correct, while also assuming that the name relates to birch trees, while not actually being the Welsh for a birch tree or trees. (though you may note in my previous post that the popular assumption that ‘Devauden’ is to do with beech trees is dubious…) I think we can take it that the name probably belonged to the wood, which is now a part of the Veddw.

Let’s lose the notion that there’s no ‘V’ in Welsh – there used to be, in middle Welsh. Apparently it looked like this:

I am fascinated by all the variable spellings, as you can see from our seat, pictured at the top of this post – which has different spellings with the dates that I have seen them on various documents.

This note of mine is the earliest I can currently find:

BADMINTON PAPERS: Deeds and Documents Volume 1. 1064   1/5/1559   use of name FEDWE

That’s it, and I don’t have access to that mysterious document right now. It’s from the National Library of Wales’ catalogues. As this is:

Deeds and Documents  Volume 2

1068  1/7/1569  grant of lands, tenements, messuages, cotts and buildings lying between land of Watkin ap Richard, the land of Richard Thomas, the bargain called the Vedow, the land of Thomas Watkyn called le menyth baghe.

and 900  23/4/1574   grant by Yeoman to John John Lewys ….land of Thomas Herbert called a Vedowe and garden of John Philippe Haris

I must get back to the National Library sometime and get these documents out to try to make sense of them. It is interesting to note that these people were Welsh, indicated by the ‘ap’ and the Welsh names. Please note that I have no idea when people stopped speaking Welsh in the Veddw and would love to know.

Then we have the 1584 Survey of the Manor of Chepstow.

I love these documents but I understand if it makes your brain boil. Even if your brain boils – think of what you might be able to find in this document of your own locality if it’s also in the Manor of Chepstow.

Here’s Veddw in that Survey. (I’ll write about the local surveys in another post some day.)

And on, to a perambulation (yes, I’ll do a post on that one day) from the Survey of 1687:

And then on to the Badminton Estate Map of 1761, which doesn’t identify Veddw as a place, but has Veadow Brook and Veadow Wood (in a strange place, but..one day I’ll think about that in a post, no doubt)

Let’s take a leap then to the Tithe Map, (1843) which will no doubt have a post to itself one day. Meanwhile the Apportionments have ‘Vedw’. This is a plan I’ve made, just to whet your appetite and make sure you subscribe to these posts..

Then the Censuses. The first, 1841, just gives us Newchurch East. Then in 1851 we have Upper Vedow and then the plebs in Lower Vedow. 1861 we’re Vedw, 1871 Lower and Upper Veddow, 1881 The Vedw (there’s another interesting thing – the use or not of the definite article. Anyone know anything about that?) That’s the last census I currently have a copy of.

In the Registrations of Births Marriages and Deaths we have various spellings. Fedw arrives, also a Vedew, and mostly Vedws, where you will find a capitalised Bastard Child in 1775.

I know – getting boring!? But we must include the Register of Voters, where in 1835-40 we have Upper Vedow and lower Vedow. Veddw and Vedw predominate in 1947, but it’s fascinating to see that two people from the same house use different spellings: Ernest Morgan is at Fedw House, Devauden, and Margaret Morgan lives at Veddw House, Devauden.

And then, interestingly, Vedda appears in 1955 and 1961 (I have only random copies of the Register). Vedda is interesting because it is the closest to the pronunciation we used to hear when we first came here, over 30 years ago.

In the begining of the 2000s things began to get difficult, as people moving into the Veddw wanted to use the name Fedw, and the ‘V’ people were reprimanded for not respecting the Welsh. And when the Highways department suddenly decided to give the lane a signpost the Highways department insisted that they had to use the Welsh version. Which leaves us with:

Which is wonderfully half English.

So – the big question for you to answer – who has the spelling right, and why?