Etymology of Totnes

The Query of J.M.B. (Vol. i., p 470.) not having been as yet answered, I venture to offer a few notes on the subject; and, mindful of your exhortation to brevity, compress my remarks into the smallest possible compass, though the details of research which might be indulged in, would call for a dissertation rather them a Note. That Totnes is a place of extreme antiquity as a British town cannot be doubted; first, from the site and character of its venerable hill fortress; secondly, from the fact that the chief of the four great British and Roman roads, the Fosse-way, commenced there—"The ferthe…