Ferthingward

   Ward called "Ferthingward" in parish of St. Peter upon Cornhill 28 Ed. I. 1299-1300 (Cal. L. Bk. B., p. 183).

   Variously identified as Cornhill Ward and Lime Street Ward, the description being applicable to either ward.

   "Ferling warde" (Cal. L. Bk. C. p. 57).

   Riley (Mem. xi.) identifies it with Cornhill Ward and suggests that the ward was so called at an earlier period when it formed the soke of the Bishop of London. But Sharpe says it is Lime Street Ward and that Thomas Sely, described in Letter Book B. as Alderman of Ferthing Ward, is elsewhere spoken of as Alderman of Lime Street Ward, and that John de Causton is similarly described in 6 Ed. III. and the 8 and 10 Ed. III. respectively.

   In Hust. Roll 191 (11) W. Hulyn is witness, in his character of Alderman of the Ward, to a deed relating to property in parish of St. Andrew Cornhill, 1460, "in Warda de Lyme Street al dicta 'Ferthyngward' " (Beavan I. 178).

   The word "farthing" or "ferling" was sometimes used to denote the fourth part of an acre, and in Camden's Britannia, ed. Holland, I. 497, it is used as the equivalent of a ward, "There were in this borough foure ferlings, that is quarters or wards" (N.E.D. s.v.).

   Perhaps the expression was applied to Lime Street Ward as being very small in size.