Gwyn Bailey <gwyn.bailey@googlemail.com> wrote: > I have been trying to identify a property that was left to an ancestor > - John Bunting - that looks like 'Potters[field]' or even > 'Poitersfield' in a1723 will? On the 1851 census I have found an area > called 'Pitiful Wood' and the 'description of the enumeration > district' for 1851, 1861, includes 'Pitifuls' which seems to indicate > an area, a farm or a house so called but I can't find anything on > google. There are a family of Ag labs living in 'Pitiful cottage' in > 1861 [not Buntings!]. On the current OS Map there is a Pettyfield Wood marked at TL733396. See < http://getamap.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/getamap/frames.htm > for an online version. It is less than a mile northeast of the village. Looking at the satellite photo from Google Maps there is a building in the western corner of the wood. Following Lawrence's suggestion of the Essex Place-names database at < http://www.essex.ac.uk/history/esah/essexplacenames/ > (thank you Lawrence for that link) it suggests "Pidifeld" and "Petty Field" as alternative place names. Cheers Elmo.