letch

1) A marshy stream, ditch or gutter.

1633 bis presentati pro hoc et pro letches in le Forest, Galtres. It was an element in minor place-names from a very early date and A.H. Smith quotes more than twenty examples, several with ‘black’ as the first element. Among the early references is riuul’ de Lecsha in a thirteenth-century document, now Leeshaw in Oxenhope.

places Galtres Oxenhope
dates 1200-1299 1633

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