The Rabbit Holmes Controversy

Following extensive chatboxery by several Audlem residents of various vintages about whether they used to sledge down Rabbit Hill or Holmes Bank, Ann Jones has pointed out that the name is recorded as Holmes Bank on the 1842 Tithe Map.

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Tithe Map 1842

Cheshire East have created a very clever online version of the 1842 Tithe Map, which you can see here.

Our picture shows the part of the tithe map covering the are concerned, and the field names given on the tithe map show three fields with the the "Holmes" name, two of them "Holmes Bank". Holmes Farm itself is not mentioned as such, although the old fram building must have been there then.

It is not clear whether the Holmes name comes from a person (and there is a Thomas Holmes in the 1842 document described as occupier of a cottage on Green Lane) or, as Dodgson would have it, is derived from an old English word "holmr" meaning marsh.

And you can rabbit on about it as much as you like.....