1) The stem or trunk of a tree.
A tenant was fined in 1619-21 in Pickering Forest for taking dyvers sled loades of thorne boales. In the same survey it was complained that timber trees had been powled and cut by the Haulf boale, perhaps having the upper half removed.
2) These are names formerly given to sites where lead was smelted, helped by draught from the prevailing wind.
The most explicit reference dates from 1587 when it was recalled that a place called Boalehill was where the Earl of Shrewsbury did burne dyvers boles of leade. However, earlier examples from the Pennines are quoted by Rastrick and Jennings and in his Place-names of Derbyshire Cameron noted that it was a very common element in and around the lead-mining areas: he gave ‘le Boles’ and ‘bolehull’ as fourteenth-century examples. There is also early Yorkshire evidence and Mary Higham’s article on lead-mining in Bowland includes: 1304-5 ‘Carrying the said ore to le Boole’. Bole Hill in Ecclesall was explained as a ‘smooth rounded hill’ by Smith but it was almost certainly connected with lead-smelting.