Audley End.
_Stoke_ (Vol. v., p. 106.).--W. B. asks the meaning of the word _stoke_
in the names of places; as Bishopstoke, Ulverstoke, &c. (Ulverstoke
being, I presume, a miscopying or misprint of Alverstoke). I cannot at
all concur in the derivation you quote from Bosworth, from _stoc_, "a
place;" for then every place might be called _stoke_ without
distinction. But in all the _stokes_ that I remember in England there is
always and actually a kind of _stockade_ or sluice, which dams up some
watercourse to a certain level. Whether this explanation will apply to
the local circumstances of all the _stokes_, I know not; but it
certainly does to the cases of Bishopstoke and Alverstoke, and of at
least half a dozen other _stokes_ within my own observation.