Suburbs
T that remote period when the first rude huts were established on the banks of the Thames, the surrounding scene could have presented nothing more inviting to the eye than an extensive marsh or morass. That such was undoubtedly the case the existing names of FENCHURCH Street and FINSBURY, furnish ample evidence. The former marks the site of an ancient church situated among the fens, while the latter is an easy corruption of Fensbury, the Anglo-Saxon designation for "a town among the fens." Therefore it was not surprising that the barbaric Britons, who founded what we now call London, should have given the name of Llyn-dun [see LINCOLN] to their colony beside the Thames.
Apropos of the Thames, the name of our noble river is merely a slight contraction of the Latin Thamesis, signifying "the broad Isis." Isis is the Celtic for water.