12 MARCH 1910, Page 19

WOE WATER.

[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."' Sin,—Might not your contributor to last week's Spectator on the subject of " Woe Water " have pushed his investigation of local names 'near Bourne End a little further ? Just above Bourne End, under the same line of chalk hills, lies the village of Wooburn. I do not know myself of a bourne having broken there recently, but surely the name Wooburn (Woe- bourne) is significant. Is there, possibly, a local tradition

at Wooburn as at Croydon P—I am, Sir, &c., BucKs.