Chapter II: Part 2

Probably the most imposing of the animals which have roamed over our district since the advent of man was the form of elephant known as the mammoth. It possessed enormous tusks and was covered with long coarse hair with an under pelage of short woolly hair so as to be fitted for life in a cold climate. Its bones have been found in several places in Berkshire, and teeth from Abingdon and Reading are in the Reading Museum.

The rhinoceros once lived in Berkshire, for bones, probably belonging to a woolly species, have been found in a railway cutting near Chilton. Bones of the bear, wolf, and bison have been found in the Drift deposits, and the wild boar was hunted in Berkshire in historic times.

The badger is a harmless animal which lives a quiet life, spending the daytime in a burrow, often in a fox earth, and only coming out at night. It is in consequence much more common than is generally supposed, and our county forms no exception.

The history of the various forms of deer in Berkshire is of considerable interest. The red deer is a native of the county, for its remains have been found in the marsh deposits. It lived in various parks until the Commonwealth, when most of the deer were killed. It has been reintroduced and is now to be seen in Windsor Park, Calcot Park, and at Hampstead Marshall. The fallow deer lives in a more or less tame state in several parks in the county, and it is probably an original inhabitant of Berkshire, for it occurs as a fossil at Brentford, in Middlesex. The roe is certainly a native, for remains have been found in the Newbury marshes. It now lives in the woods about Virginia Water and Sunningdale. The reindeer has been found as a fossil at Windsor.

An imperfect skull of the musk ox was found in a bed of gravel near Maidenhead in 1855, and is now in the Natural History Museum at South Kensington. It was the first discovery of the remains of this animal in Britain.

As might be expected there are no very outstanding features in Berkshire ornithology. The midland position of the county is against any long list of foreign visitors, and there are no fens or broads to tempt the special birds affecting such localities. The heron is often to be seen, and there is a heronry at Virginia Water, and others at Coley Park, Buscot, and Wytham Abbey. Woodpeckers, as might be supposed, are more especially common in the forest districts of eastern Berkshire. The carrion crow is a resident but is very local in occurrence. The hooded crow is a rather uncommon winter visitor. The peregrine falcon often visits us, but the buzzard, which used to live and breed in the county, is now but a rare visitor. The great bustard was a resident up to the end of the eighteenth century but is now no longer to be counted as a British bird. The swans which we see on the rivers and on many lakes and ponds are for the most part private property, but there are often wild birds amongst them.

Of reptiles found in Berkshire, the slow-worm, common snake, and lizard abound on the moorlands, and the first of these on the chalk; the adder is not at all common.

Time was, and that not so very long ago, when the salmon might be caught in the Thames. In the reign of Edward III (1341), a petition was made to the King, complaining that salmon and other fish in the Thames were taken and destroyed by engines placed to catch the fry, which were then used for feeding pigs. The King was asked to forbid the use of these engines between London and the sea, and also to decree that no salmon be taken between Gravesend and Henley bridge in winter. A book on angling published in 1815 speaking of salmon says, "some are found in the Thames which the writer believes were justly considered to be superior to any bred in other rivers."

In recent years an attempt has been made to reintroduce the salmon into the Thames, and many young salmon have been turned out in the river, but so far without any useful result.

But though the salmon has been, and again may be an inhabitant of the Thames, the brown trout is, and always has been, the fish of Berkshire. It attains a large size, and fish of from 8 to 12 lbs. are frequently caught in the Thames. There is, however, a scarcity of suitable breeding-places for trout in the river, and the stock, during recent years, has been kept up by introducing young fish, and not only brown trout but also Lochleven trout and rainbow trout have been turned into the river in great numbers. Many of the tributaries of the Thames are excellent trout streams, the Lambourn being a particularly good one.

The pike is found in the rivers and in many a lake and pond throughout Berkshire. Grayling occur in the Kennet and are occasionally caught in the Thames. The gudgeon is a well-known Thames fish; and perch, roach, dace, barbel and minnows abound. The little ruff or pope is fairly common in the Thames, and the miller's thumb, another small fish belonging to the cooler parts of the world, is to be seen in most of our streams darting from place to place with great rapidity. The rudd, which is generally distributed through the more level part of England, is not common in Berkshire. The bream is occasionally caught in the Thames, but it is not a native and was probably introduced from Norfolk.

The great variety of soil found in the river valleys, on the chalk downs, and in the forest district gives rise to much difference in the vegetation in different parts of the county. The beds of bullrush, the yellow and purple loosestrife, and the white and yellow water-lily are intimately associated with the beauty of the Thames.

The ling, the bell heather, and the cross-leaved heath cover large tracts in the eastern part of the county, and the bilberry is found in the woods of the same district. The bramble abounds in the forest parts, and of cultivated fruits we have large orchards of plums and cherries in the northern part of the county. Some rare orchids are to be found on the chalk, and in the peat districts the interesting little sundew is quite common.

In the chalk district the holly and beech grow well, and fine oaks are to be seen in many parts of our county. Herne's Oak, in Windsor Park, has given rise to much discussion, but there can be little doubt that the tree known by that name to Shakespeare was cut down in 1796. There are some avenues of fine elms in Windsor Park--notably the Long Walk.

Of the conifers, the yew is a native of our district and grows well on the chalk, and the so-called Scotch fir (in reality a pine), a native of Scotland, has been introduced and forms extensive woods in the sandy parts of the county. The cedar of Lebanon, various kinds of cypress, the araucaria of Chile, the cryptomeria of Japan and the Wellingtonia (Sequoia) of California have been introduced into the county. On the opposite page is a view of an avenue of the Wellingtonia near Wellington College.

8. CLIMATE AND RAINFALL.

The climate of a country or district is, briefly, the average weather of that country or district, and it depends upon various factors, all mutually interacting, upon the latitude, the temperature, the direction and strength of the winds, the rainfall, the character of the soil, and the proximity of the district to the sea.

The differences in the climates of the world depend mainly upon latitude, but a scarcely less important factor is proximity to the sea. Along any great climatic zone there will be found variations in proportion to this proximity, the extremes being "continental" climates in the centres of continents far from the oceans, and "insular" climates in small tracts surrounded by sea. Continental climates show great differences in seasonal temperatures, the winters tending to be unusually cold and the summers unusually warm, while the climate of insular tracts is characterised by equableness and also by greater dampness. Great Britain possesses, by reason of its position, a temperate insular climate, but its average annual temperature is much higher than could be expected from its latitude. The prevalent south-westerly winds cause a drift of the surface-waters of the Atlantic towards our shores, and this warm-water current, which we know as the Gulf Stream, is the chief cause of the mildness of our winters.

Most of our weather comes to us from the Atlantic. It would be impossible here within the limits of a short chapter to discuss fully the causes which affect or control weather changes. It must suffice to say that the conditions are in the main either cyclonic or anticyclonic, which terms may be best explained, perhaps, by comparing the air currents to a stream of water. In a stream a chain of eddies may often be seen fringing the more steadily-moving central water. Regarding the general north-easterly moving air from the Atlantic as such a stream, a chain of eddies may be developed in a belt parallel with its general direction. This belt of eddies or cyclones, as they are termed, tends to shift its position, sometimes passing over our islands, sometimes to the north or south of them, and it is to this shifting that most of our weather changes are due. Cyclonic conditions are associated with a greater or less amount of atmospheric disturbance; anticyclonic with calms.

The prevalent Atlantic winds largely affect our island in another way, namely in its rainfall. The air, heavily laden with moisture from its passage over the ocean, meets with elevated land-tracts directly it reaches our shores--the moorland of Devon and Cornwall, the Welsh mountains, or the fells of Cumberland and Westmorland--and blowing up the rising land-surface, parts with this moisture as rain. To how great an extent this occurs is best seen by reference to the map of the annual rainfall of England on the next page, where it will at once be noticed that the heaviest fall is in the west, and that it decreases with remarkable regularity until the least fall is reached on our eastern shores. Thus in 1906, the maximum rainfall for the year occurred at Glaslyn in the Snowdon district, where 205 inches of rain fell; and the lowest was at Boyton in Suffolk, with a record of just under 20 inches. These western highlands, therefore, may not inaptly be compared to an umbrella, sheltering the country further eastward from the rain.

The above causes, then, are those mainly concerned in influencing the weather, but there are other and more local factors which often affect greatly the climate of a place, such, for example, as configuration, position, and soil. The shelter of a range of hills, a southern aspect, a sandy soil, will thus produce conditions which may differ greatly from those of a place--perhaps at no great distance--situated on a wind-swept northern slope with a cold clay soil.

Berkshire is an inland county but no part of it is as much as 75 miles from the coast. The chalk downs have a fine bracing climate, and though some of the valleys may be relaxing and some of the moorland tracts bleak, the general climate of the county is exceedingly healthy. Compared with the south coast of England Berkshire is rather cooler, with somewhat less sunshine and less rain than the coast.

Temperature, it should be remarked, varies according to height above sea level, falling about 1° Fahr. for each 100 to 300 feet upwards. In a comparatively level district, like Berkshire, this is not a very serious consideration. The mean temperature for the year varies in different parts of England from about 47·3 in the north-eastern counties to about 49·6 in the south-east. The mean temperature is about 49·0 in northern Berkshire and about 47·5 in south-western Berkshire. It may be of interest to give the mean temperature for one year at places in and close around Berkshire. We take the year 1907 and the figures are as follows--Maidenhead 49·4, Wokingham 47·7, Swarraton in Hampshire 47·9, Marlborough in Wiltshire 47·4, and Oxford 48·9.

The average temperature in the month of January varies from 37·0 to 38·0 in different parts of the county, and the average temperature for July from 59·7 to 62·0.

In England bright sunshine is most prevalent on the coast and decreases inland. The annual total amount for the south and east coast from Cornwall to Norfolk is nearly 1800 hours, whilst in the northern midland counties the amount is about 1200 hours. There are no definite data available for giving the amount for Berkshire, but there are probably about 1500 hours of bright sunshine in the year.

The rainfall varies a good deal in different parts of the county. The amount is lowest in the north-east and highest in the south-west. Thus Wallingford and Cookham have a rainfall of about 23 inches a year on an average. At Reading, which is somewhat to the south-west, the amount is nearly 24 inches a year, and on a line running through Wellington College and Yattendon the amount is nearly 25 inches. Letcombe Regis and Ashbury have a rainfall of between 25 and 26 inches. At Faringdon the figure is above 26, and in the south-western corner of the county there is a rainfall of about 29 inches a year. The average yearly rainfall for the whole of England is 31·62 inches, and for the British Isles it is 39·25 inches. Looking at the extremes of rainfall in England we find the lowest at Shoeburyness with an average of 19·7 inches for the year, whilst Seathwaite in Cumberland has an average rainfall of 133·53 inches per annum.

9. PEOPLE--RACE. POPULATION.

We know little about the ancient people who made and used the flint implements which are found in the river gravels around Reading and at other places, and even when we come to the latter part of the Stone Age, though we find skeletons in the barrows or mounds upon our downs, our information about the race is exceedingly small, and this is perhaps not to be wondered at, for in no case do we find any knowledge of the art of writing in the stage of culture when only stone and no metal implements were used. Moreover, we must bear in mind that all we know about early England from written history is from the works of foreign merchants or of foreign conquerors.

The Belgae who occupied the part of Britain south of the Thames at the time of Caesar's invasion may have been partly or mostly Gauls. The tribe named the Atrebates occupied most or all of what is now Berkshire, and Silchester in Hampshire was their chief town.

During the Roman occupation the district was far from the frontier, and the inhabitants continued their peaceful village life, becoming more or less Romanised.

After the departure of the Romans the Saxons spread gradually over the country and were probably settled in Berkshire before A.D. 568. The invaders made a clean sweep of Roman civilisation, destroyed the villages and houses, and extirpated the Christian religion.

In A.D. 597 Augustine with his band of monks landed in the Isle of Thanet, and the conversion of the Saxons proceeded rapidly, and in time letters, arts, and civilisation returned to the county.

In later times Berkshire was overwhelmed by the Danes, and conquered by the Normans, but neither Danes nor Normans made anything like so great a change in the face of the country as had been effected by the Saxons, and there is even now a large Saxon element in our people, in our language, and in our manners and customs.

In early days there was a considerable population living on the chalk downs, but by degrees they moved elsewhere, and for a long time the people were mainly gathered in the valleys, especially along the banks of the rivers Thames and Kennet. Nearly all the Berkshire towns are situated upon one or other of those rivers. In quite modern times there has been a great increase of population in the eastern end of the county, large areas of heath-land having been built over.

The population of Berkshire was steadily increasing during the whole of the last century. In 1801 the census gave a population of 110,752, and this had increased in 1851 to 170,243, and in 1901 to 256,509. That is to say the population of the county had more than doubled in the century.

In 1901 there were 72,217 people living in the county borough of Reading. Of the six municipal boroughs in Berkshire Windsor had the largest population, and the others in order of numbers of inhabitants were Maidenhead, Newbury, Abingdon, Wokingham, and Wallingford.

Of the persons registered as inhabitants of Berkshire in 1901, 398 were in hospital, 150 of whom were in the Royal Berkshire Hospital at Reading; 1638 were in Lunatic Asylums, of whom 646 were in the County Lunatic Asylum, Cholsey; 657 in the Criminal Lunatic Asylum at Broadmoor, and 335 in the Holloway Sanatorium, Egham, which is in the county of Surrey, but is included in Berkshire for registration purposes.

One man and one woman were described as over 100 years of age and they were both living in Reading. Five men and thirteen women were described as between 95 and 100 years of age.

In the military barracks in the county there were 392 officers and 1860 non-commissioned officers and men--the 344 cadets at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, being included amongst the officers.

The number of men engaged in the general or local government of the county was 1423. The number engaged in teaching as schoolmasters, professors, etc., was 590 men and 1712 women.

In many counties a large number of persons are described as living in ships, barges or boats, but in Berkshire the number in 1901 was only nine.

10. AGRICULTURE.

The cultivation of the soil has probably been carried on, to some extent, since the days of the people who made the stone implements, though they doubtless chiefly concerned themselves with the chase. The early inhabitants lived partly on the chalk land and partly on the banks of the rivers. The art of cultivation no doubt spread by degrees amongst the natives, and not only the flat chalk surfaces but even the steep sides of the downs were brought into service, and they may be seen now scored with horizontal terraces in many places, partly the result of cultivation in long strips on the hill side, and partly made intentionally to assist cultivation. Terraces of this kind are found in many parts of England and are known as "linchets" or "lynchets." They form a marked feature in the landscape, near Compton Beauchamp for instance, and were at one time thought to be old sea beaches, but this was an error; the sea had nothing to do with their formation. They are cultivation terraces in most cases, though in some instances they may be, at least in part, due to landslip or to a natural accumulation of rain wash.

During Saxon times the greater part of Berkshire came under cultivation, and agriculture has ever since been the main industry of our county. The Vale of White Horse and its neighbourhood is one of the most fertile tracts in England, and there is also some rich pasture land on the alluvium by the rivers at Abingdon, Purley, Newbury, Woolhampton, Theale, Reading, and Twyford.

In the eighteenth and the early part of the nineteenth centuries corn-growing was very profitable, and a great deal of land was laid down in corn, some of it being far from suited to the purpose. In later times the profit on corn has been reduced and some of this land has been turned to other uses or has gone out of cultivation. In 1905 the area in Berkshire devoted to corn was 98,968 acres, and in 1908 the area was 96,169 acres, a reduction of 2799 acres. The reduction was mainly in the crop of wheat, there was only a slight reduction in barley, whilst there was an increase in the amount of oats. The relative amount of wheat, barley, and oats grown in 1908 is shown in the diagram at the end of this volume.

Berkshire is not one of the great fruit-growing counties. In 1908 the acreage returned as orchards was 2942.

The total amount of arable land in the county in 1908 was 179,047 acres. This includes the land under clover, sainfoin, and grasses under rotation 35,760 acres. The area of permanent grass was 175,017 acres, making a total of 354,064 acres under either crops or grass.

At the present time the production of milk is one of the most important industries of the county, the chief dairy district being the northern part and the tracts along the rivers. In 1908 the number of cattle in the county was 48,118. A cheese like single Gloucester is made in the Vale of White Horse.

The number of sheep in Berkshire was returned as 167,413. They do not belong to the breed formerly known as "Berkshire." This was a large animal with black face and black or mottled legs, which is now replaced by other kinds. The county has long been famous for its pigs, which numbered 26,171 in the year 1908.

In former days the vine was cultivated in Berkshire, and a little vineyard existed as late as the reign of George III outside Windsor Castle and to the east of Henry VIII's gateway. We also find mention of vineyards at Abingdon, Bisham, Burghfield, and Wallingford.

The number of men engaged in agriculture in Berkshire was 14,918 at the time of the last census.

11. INDUSTRIES AND MANUFACTURES.

As we have said, Berkshire is essentially an agricultural county, and the cloth-making which in the days of Ashmole was so great a trade that almost the whole nation was supplied from our county, has become practically obsolete. There are however at the present day several industries which give employment to a large number of workers in the county. Probably the one most definitely connected with our county town Reading is the making of biscuits, an industry of quite modern growth. Printing, too, is carried on at important works at Reading belonging in many cases to London firms, and there are also more or less active printing presses at nearly all our towns and in country places too. Printing in Berkshire goes back certainly to 1528, when John Scolar set up a press in the Abbey of Abingdon and printed a breviary, a copy of which is preserved at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. One of the oldest of existing newspapers is the Reading Mercury, started in that town in 1723.

Brewing has been carried on from the days of the monks, and no doubt plenty of good ale was brewed in the Abbeys of Abingdon and Reading. There is a record of malting mills in Wallingford Castle in 1300. At the present time there are large breweries at Reading, Windsor, and other places. Tanning is another very old industry which is still carried on with activity. The bark of the oak was formerly used to a large extent in tanning, and there has always been an abundance of oak trees in the county. Oak bark is still used to some extent. Shoe-making used to be an important cottage industry, but the introduction of machinery has carried the work to large factories elsewhere.

Newbury was at one time a great place for barge building, and boats of many kinds are now built at various places on the Thames and Kennet, indeed boat building counts amongst the more important of our active industries.

We have already mentioned cloth-making as one of the great industries of the county in former times. The chief centres were Reading, Abingdon, and Newbury. A fulling mill at Newbury is mentioned in 1205. The interesting Cloth Hall at that place, now a museum, was built by the Guild of Clothworkers of Newbury, which was incorporated in 1601, and the beautiful old house of Shaw was built by a Newbury clothier named Thomas Dolman in 1581. The most famous of the Berkshire clothiers was John Winchcombe or Smalwoode, known as Jack of Newbury (died 1520). During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the clothing trade declined. This was partly due to the activity of the northern clothiers and to the introduction of machinery with the resulting factory system. Still as late as 1816 there were works in Katesgrove Lane, Reading, where sail-cloth for the navy was manufactured in large quantity.

The silk industry too, once of some importance, has left the district. At the end of the sixteenth century silk-stocking making was quite an important industry at Wokingham, and many mulberry trees were planted in and near the town. Silk manufactures were also active at Reading, Newbury, Kintbury, Twyford, and other places.

Seed-growing is an important industry at Reading and employs a large number of people.

Iron and brass foundries of some importance are established at Reading and many other places, and there are large engineering works at Wantage.

There was a good bell-foundry at Wokingham in the last quarter of the fourteenth century (temp. Richard II), and several bells made there still exist. About 1495 the business was transferred to Reading, and bell-founding was carried on at that place until the beginning of the eighteenth century.

Lastly, the open country near Lambourn has long been used for training race-horses, and there are very large stables in this part of the country. The "gallops" now extend from Compton, Ilsley, and Wantage to Lambourn.

12. MINERALS. BUILDING MATERIALS.

There is very little in the way of minerals in the rock or soil of the county. Bands of ironstone are found in the Lower Greensand formation, and it appears to have been worked near Faringdon. A group of small hollows to the east of Little Coxwell are known as Cole's Pits and were probably dug to get the iron ore.

Two chalybeate springs at Sunninghill were at one time quite well known.

Whiting or whitening has for a long time been manufactured at Kintbury from soft chalk which is dug there. A layer in the Reading Beds at Reading used to be dug as fuller's earth for the clothiers of that town.

Before the Norman conquest most of the buildings in the county were of wood, and of course wood has been very largely used in buildings at all times. Splendid examples of hewn timber-work may be seen in many of our churches and other buildings. There is for example some very fine old timber in the Canon's Cloisters at Windsor Castle.

Brick was a building material in the time of the Romans and its use was most probably never wholly discontinued. In Tudor times many of the buildings were of brick and timber, and picturesque brick and timber structures of various dates will be found in all parts of our county. The gallery at Christ's Hospital, Abingdon, shown on the next page, is a good example.

All the clay formations in Berkshire have been used for brick and tile making. The works at Katesgrove and other places on the banks of the Kennet at Reading are very old and certainly go back to the sixteenth century. In 1901 there were 1029 men and 35 women engaged in brick, cement, pottery, and like works in Berkshire.

The limestone rocks of the Corallian formation have been much quarried in the district between Faringdon and the river Thames near Oxford, and the stone has been used in buildings of all ages.

Chalk has also been extensively quarried for building purposes. There is a great deal of chalk in the walls of the Dean's Cloisters and also in other parts of Windsor Castle. Chalk frame-work may be seen in many church windows, at Old Windsor and Bray for instance. At Waltham St Lawrence there is a very curious example, for some flints are actually left in the chalk mullions of the east window of the north chantry. It may be of interest to mention that in the valley of the Seine in northern France chalk has been extensively used as a building stone--in some of the best buildings at Rouen for example.

Flints from the chalk are much used as building-material in Berkshire; they are employed fixed in concrete to form the core of walls, as at Reading Abbey, and as facing to walls with stone corners and window-frames. Shottesbrooke Church is faced with beautifully dressed little flints. In other churches the flints are not squared but in the rough state. At St Mary's Church, Reading, there is building of a chess-board pattern, one set of squares being stone and the others formed of small dressed flints. Another example of this chequer-work is shown in the view of the church at White Waltham here given.

The hard sandstone which has been derived from the Eocene strata and is termed "sarsen" (see p. 40) is an important Berkshire building stone. There is a great deal of it in the walls all over Windsor Castle, several of the towers and walls being faced with sarsen.

In some of the Berkshire gravel beds there is a hard irony conglomerate, and this has been used as a building material. There is a good deal in the tower of St Giles Church, Reading, and in the parish church at Wokingham.

There are many building-materials used in the county which have been brought from other districts, but this chapter only deals with things found in Berkshire itself.

Chalk was formerly used to a large extent for chalking the soil, but the practice has now almost fallen into disuse, and in consequence one sees abandoned chalk pits all over the chalk district. The reasons for giving up chalking are the increase in the cost of labour and the decrease in the value of corn crops, together with the much larger use of artificial manures. The fertility of many farms now is nevertheless due to the liming and chalking of old days, and it is to be regretted that the practice has been abandoned to so great an extent.

13. THE HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE.

It has already been mentioned that Berkshire probably came into existence as a county in the time of King Egbert, who brought the long struggle between the kingdoms of the Heptarchy to a close and established the ascendancy of Wessex over much of the south of England. It is probable that there was still a population living on the chalk downs and in occupation of the old forts, and the fertile Vale of White Horse was gradually coming under cultivation. In any case there was a royal residence at Wantage, where Alfred the Great was born in 849, and a religious foundation at Abingdon. There were also at least two towns, Reading and Wallingford.

Already in the previous century the English coast had been harried by the Viking pirates, but there is no record of their having penetrated to our district. In 851 they did indeed make their way up the Thames into Surrey, but were defeated by Ethelwulf, the son of Egbert, and his son Ethelbald at Ockley. They next approached Berkshire from the south coast, and in 860 attacked and plundered Winchester, but were defeated by the united forces of Berkshire and Hampshire. Ivor the Dane is said to have reached Reading in 868, and Reading was captured and occupied by the Danes in 871.

Ethelred was at this time king and together with his brother Alfred fought the Danes near Reading, but was not successful and retreated westwards. The Danes followed and the great battle of Assandun, in which the Danes were put to flight, was fought on the chalk downs at some place to the west of Aldworth in 871. There is much doubt as to the exact site of the battle. At one time it was supposed that the White Horse was cut on the hill-side as a memorial of the victory, but it is now known that this was not so, for the horse is much older than the date of the battle. The Danes retreated to Reading, and only 14 days afterwards they got the better of the Saxons in a fight at Basing in Hampshire, and were again victorious two months later at Merton. A truce, however, followed and the Danes retired to London. All this was in the year 871, and during the same year King Ethelred died and Alfred the Great became king. How King Alfred, who ruled until 901, eventually defeated the Danes and came to terms with them is well known, and Berkshire for a time enjoyed peace.

About this time there was a royal residence at Faringdon, for it is recorded that Edward the Elder died there in 925. His son Athelstan had a mint at Wallingford, and three coins struck by him at that place are in the collection at the British Museum. The monastery at Abingdon had been destroyed by the Danes, and St Ethelwold was told by King Edred to re-establish it, but the work was not accomplished until the reign of Edgar. Ethelred the Unready had a mint at Reading.

In 1006 the Danes again appeared in Berkshire and burnt Reading. They then advanced up the Thames to Wallingford and burnt that town. They did not, however, remain in the county, but carried their booty to the sea by way of Winchester. Both Reading and Wallingford were soon rebuilt. Edward the Confessor struck coins at both these towns, and there are specimens in the British Museum. The Confessor had a residence at Old Windsor, and the great Earl Godwin is said to have died there in a manner attributed to the judgment of God. The King gave Windsor to the Abbey of Westminster, but William the Conqueror exchanged it for some land in Essex, and built a castle on the chalk hill near the Thames where the present Windsor Castle stands. Ever since the time of the Conqueror Windsor has been a favourite residence of our Sovereigns.

In 1121 Reading Abbey was founded by King Henry I and the first Abbot was appointed in 1123. Henry added to the buildings at Windsor, and his marriage to his second wife Adelais, daughter of Godfrey Count of Louvain, took place there in 1121. There was at this time a castle at Wallingford, for it is recorded that Waleran, Earl of Mellent, was imprisoned there in 1126.

Henry I died in 1135 and was buried in Reading Abbey. On his death the peace of the county was disturbed by civil war, for the crown was claimed by Henry's nephew, Stephen of Blois, though he had sworn to support the cause of Henry's daughter Maud or Matilda. Matilda had been married twice, and as her first husband was Henry V, the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, she is known as the Empress Matilda. War between Stephen and Matilda began in 1139 and spread over most of England. Windsor and Reading were held for Stephen, whilst Brian of Wallingford, a great magnate in Berkshire, took the side of Matilda. Wallingford Castle was besieged by Stephen in 1139 and again in 1145, but without success. A castle at Faringdon built by Robert Earl of Gloucester was taken and destroyed by Stephen. In 1145 Matilda gave up the contest and retired to France, but in 1152 her son Henry renewed the war and Stephen again besieged Wallingford and again unsuccessfully. He also besieged Newbury Castle, which was held by John Marshal of Hampstead Marshall. Eventually in 1153 peace was made at Wallingford--Stephen to be king for life and to be succeeded by Henry, son of Matilda. Stephen died in the next year, 1154, and Henry was crowned as King Henry II. He possessed himself of Wallingford Castle and held a Council there in 1155. Henry added to the buildings at Windsor Castle, and the lower part of the south side of the Upper Ward dates from his time.

In 1163 a duel or wager of battle was fought between Robert de Montfort and Henry of Essex on an island in the Thames below Caversham Bridge. Essex was accused of treachery or cowardice, having thrown away the standard in a battle at Coleshill. He was defeated in the duel and was allowed to join the community of Reading Abbey.

On April 19th, 1164, the ceremony of hallowing the Abbey Church at Reading was performed by Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, in the presence of the King. In 1175 Henry held a royal festival at Reading, and in 1185 we hear of a state ceremony at this town, when Henry received Heraclius, the Patriarch of Jerusalem. Henry died in 1189 and was succeeded by his son Richard I. Soon after his accession Richard left England on a crusade, having appointed the Bishops of Ely and Durham guardians of the kingdom during his absence. To his brother John he gave the government of some English districts and places, including the Honour of Wallingford. After Richard's departure a quarrel arose between the Bishop of Ely, whose name was Longchamp, and Geoffrey Archbishop of York, and Longchamp caused Geoffrey to be arrested. Prince John took the part of Geoffrey and called a Council at Reading to demand justification from Longchamp, who was summoned to meet the prince at Loddon Bridge, presumably the bridge on the Reading and Wokingham road. Longchamp did not appear, and all the participators in the arrest of the Archbishop were excommunicated in Reading church. Longchamp eventually retired to the continent, and John obtained possession of Windsor Castle, but gave it up to Queen Eleanor until Richard should come back--which he did in 1194. On Richard's death, in 1199, his brother John became King. In 1204 he obtained possession of Beckett near Shrivenham, once the property of the Earls of Evreux, and he probably lived there at times, for a mandate to the Sheriff of Oxfordshire is dated from Beckett. In 1213 John held an important ecclesiastical Council at Reading Abbey. He died in 1216 and was succeeded by his son Henry, who was in his tenth year. William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, son of John Marshal already mentioned, was appointed Regent of the kingdom, and he held the office until his death in 1219.

In the Dean's Cloisters at Windsor may be still seen the crowned head of Henry painted during his life by William the monk of Westminster. Henry added largely to Windsor Castle, and the outer walls and towers of the Lower Ward are to a great extent his work. Disputes arose between Henry and his barons, and Berkshire was again the scene of civil war. In 1261 Parliament was summoned to meet at Windsor, and the castle was fortified by Prince Edward. It was taken in 1263 by Simon de Montfort, and the prince was captured. In time, however, he escaped and got the better of the barons.

In 1295 Berkshire sent two knights of the shire to Parliament, and Reading and Wallingford also sent representatives. In 1307 the Templars were expelled from their Preceptories at Bisham and Templeton. In the time of Edward II we hear complaints of robbers in Windsor Forest.

Edward III was born at Windsor in 1312, and his tenure of power began at a Court held at Wallingford in 1326, though his father was not deposed until the next year. King Edward wished to hold a Round Table in imitation of King Arthur, and he invited a number of knights both English and foreign to assemble at Windsor Castle in 1344. No doubt a splendid tournament took place and others followed in subsequent years. In 1347 or 1348 a garter with the motto Hony soit qui mal y pense was worn as a device at jousts at Windsor, and the institution of the Order of the Garter in all probability took place at Windsor in 1348, though some authorities give the date as 1349. At Christmas, 1346, the King was at Reading and a great jousting was held in his honour, and in 1359 John of Gaunt, afterwards Duke of Lancaster, was married at Reading, and there was a great pageant and a tournament in which the King and his sons took part.

During the reign of Edward III, William of Wykeham built, or re-built, the Round Tower and much of the castle at Windsor. The sword of the King is still preserved there.

In 1327 Abingdon had a little fight of its own. Some of the townspeople, assisted by the Mayor of Oxford and it is said by some scholars, attacked the Abbey and drove out the monks, part of the buildings being burnt and the muniments destroyed. In the end twelve of the attacking party were hanged and the monks restored.

In 1361 the Black Prince married Joan the Fair Maid of Kent. The marriage took place at Windsor, and after her husband's death Joan lived a good deal at Wallingford.

The reign of Richard II, which lasted from 1377 to 1399, was marked by constant troubles between the King with his favourites on the one hand and the nobles on the other. In 1387 Radcot Bridge was the scene of a fight between the King's party of 5000 men under De Vere, Duke of Ireland, and Henry Earl of Derby (afterwards Henry IV). De Vere was defeated, and only escaped by swimming down the Thames.

In 1399 Richard's inglorious reign came to an end. He was deposed in favour of Henry of Bolingbroke, son of John of Gaunt, who became King as Henry IV.

14. THE HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE (CONTINUED).

The reign of Henry IV lasted from 1399 to 1413. The hereditary heir to the Crown on the death of Richard II was a child, Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, and he was detained a prisoner at Windsor Castle during the whole of Henry's reign, and only liberated by Henry V in 1413. There was at least one fight in Berkshire during the time of Henry IV. In 1400 an attempt was made by some of the nobles to fall on the King at Windsor, but he was warned in time, and retired to London, and when the insurgents reached Windsor, they entered the Castle without opposition, searched for the King, but found he had gone. Meanwhile he had raised a force in London, and came to attack the insurgent nobles, who retreated, and a sharp encounter took place at Maidenhead Bridge. The insurgents retired to Oxford and were eventually defeated.

James I, King of Scotland, was a prisoner at Windsor during most of the last ten years of his long captivity, which ended by his release in 1424. His book, The King's Quhair, was written at Windsor, and it was at Windsor that he fell in love with Jane Beaufort, who afterwards became his Queen.

Henry VI was born at Windsor in 1421, and became King when about nine months old. He grew up weak in mind, and during his reign all England was involved in the Wars of the Roses. Berkshire was during most of the time held by the Lancastrian party, but in 1460 Newbury was taken by the Earl of Wiltshire on behalf of the Yorkists. In the next year, 1461, the Duke of York obtained the Crown under the name of Edward IV.

Henry VI held several Parliaments at Reading, and Edward IV also visited the Abbey, and it is recorded that in 1464 he made the first public announcement of his marriage with Elizabeth Woodville at a great Council of the Peers at Reading. The marriage was not popular, and it was especially disliked by the Nevilles, the most powerful of whom, Richard Earl of Warwick, subsequently defeated Edward's forces and restored Henry VI, but Henry's renewed reign lasted only some six months, for Edward defeated Warwick, who was killed, at the battle of Barnet in 1471. Warwick and his brother the Marquis of Montagu, also killed at Barnet, were both buried at Bisham Abbey in Berkshire.

The greater part of St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle dates from the reign of King Edward IV, and he was the first of our kings to be buried there, 1483. The body of his rival Henry VI was removed to Windsor from Chertsey Abbey in 1484. The beautiful Rutland Chapel in St George's Chapel was built by Sir Thomas St Leger in memory of his wife Ann, sister of Edward IV. St Leger was beheaded by Richard III, but was buried in the chapel and a brass to himself and his wife still remains on the wall there.

After the Wars of the Roses peace reigned in Berkshire for many a long year, and the county no doubt increased in wealth and prospered generally. A considerable part of the land was in the possession of the Church, but in the days of King Henry VIII the whole of the monastic institutions were swept away.

Owing to the dissolution of the monasteries a large part of the land in Berkshire passed into the hands of the Crown. Some of it was granted to Oxford colleges and much to private persons.

In 1544 three persons, Testwood, Filmer, and Peerson were burnt at Windsor as heretics, and in 1556 Julius Palmer, Master of Reading Grammar School, John Gwin, and Thomas Askew were burnt at the sandpits near Newbury.

Elizabeth, before her accession in 1558, lived for some three years at Sir Thomas Hoby's house at Bisham; indeed she was practically a prisoner under the charge of Sir Thomas and his wife's sisters. When she came to the throne Elizabeth like her predecessors lived a good deal at Windsor, and we hear of visits by her to Reading, Englefield House (Sir F. Walsingham) and other places. It was in her days that the tragedy took place which made "Cumnor Hall" known all over the world, though its celebrity is due more to Scott's novel Kenilworth than to history. The real facts were, however, sufficiently tragic. Amy, the daughter of Sir John Robsart, married Lord Robert Dudley, afterwards Earl of Leicester, in 1550. Ten years later she was found dead, at Cumnor Place, which had been recently purchased by Anthony Forster the steward of Lord Robert. Foul play was suspected and it was suggested that Dudley had reasons for wishing to get rid of his wife as she stood in the way of higher ambitions. There were no "haunted towers of Cumnor Hall" for Cumnor Place was not a large house. Now only a few remains of walls are left on the site.

At the beginning of the Civil War Berkshire was generally Royalist, and the county was the scene of much fighting during the whole war, an account of which can be found in any History of England. The Earl of Essex captured Reading after a siege in 1643, and on September 20th of the same year there was a hard-fought battle between Charles and Essex near Newbury. Lord Falkland, who was on the King's side, was killed at this battle, and a granite monument to his memory stands on the high ground south of the town.

A second battle took place near Newbury on October 27th, 1644, when the Royalists occupied a position near Shaw House between the rivers Kennet and Lambourn. Earthworks, remains of this fight, may still be seen at Shaw House. Donnington Castle, near by, held out for the King until 1646, and Wallingford Castle fell into the hands of the Parliament in the same year.

On February 8th, 1649, Charles was buried in St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle.

Since the Civil War there has been only one small fight in Berkshire and that was in 1688. On December 6th of that year William of Orange reached Hungerford, and a force of 250 of his men came into conflict with 600 of James's Irish troops at Reading. Superior discipline enabled William's men to drive the Irish in confusion through the streets into the market-place where they attempted to rally, but being vigorously attacked in front, and fired upon at the same time by the inhabitants from the windows, they fled with the loss of their colours and 50 men, the conquerors only sustaining a loss of five.

There is not much to say of the history of the county since that date, though, owing to the frequent residence of the Sovereign at Windsor, many an event of the highest importance and interest has taken place there.

15. ANTIQUITIES--(A) PREHISTORIC.

We have no written records of Man as he first lived in our land long ages ago. Writing was an unknown art, and records--even if they had existed--could not have survived to come down to us. We therefore speak of this period as the Prehistoric--the time when the people of the past were unable themselves to record their story. Yet, though these sources of information are closed to us, we are able from the relics they have left behind them--the implements and weapons that they used, the bones of the animals they fed upon, the structures they erected--to form a fairly clear idea of these early peoples.

But this Prehistoric period, vast in its extent, has for convenience sake been further subdivided. At first the metals were unknown, or at least unused, and this period is spoken of as the Stone Age, for it was of flints and other stones that weapons and domestic implements were mainly fashioned. Later, man learnt how to get the easily-worked ores of tin and copper from the rocks and by their admixture to form bronze. From this, beautiful weapons and other articles were made, and from the time of the discovery we date what is known as the Bronze Age. Doubtless the ores of iron had long been known, but how to smelt them was another matter. At length the method was discovered, and mankind was in possession of hard metal implements having great advantages for all purposes over those previously employed. Thus the Iron Age began, and the early inhabitants of Britain had arrived at this stage of civilisation when the Romans came to our land.

We may now turn to a consideration of these various epochs in their order. Firstly the Stone Age. This, though a convenient term as covering all the period before the advent of the Metal Ages, is too indefinite both as to time and race, and hence it is usual to speak of the Palaeolithic or Old Stone Age, and the Neolithic or New Stone Age. The people of these two Ages were very distinct, and most authorities hold that--at all events in our land--a vast gap of time separated them, though no such gap occurred between the later Ages. Palaeolithic man, from various causes, ceased to inhabit what we now call Britain, and when the country was re-peopled it was by Neolithic man. Palaeolithic man lived in the days when the mammoth, reindeer, and hyaena roamed over our country; made leaf-shaped roughly-flaked flint weapons which were never ground or polished; cultivated no plants and tamed no animals; and built no monuments, graves, or houses. Neolithic man, on the other hand, learnt how to grind and polish his implements; was both a farmer and a breeder of stock; had many industries; and built megalithic monuments, houses, and graves--the remains of which survive to the present day.

The earliest signs of the existence of man in Berkshire are, as we have said, the implements of stone, mostly flint, found in the gravels; and the implements of the Palaeolithic Period take us back to a very old time, so old that the surface features of our district were then quite different from what we see now.

There is a fine series of Palaeolithic implements in the Reading Museum, and most of them have been found in gravel-pits near the river Thames in the Reading and Twyford district, or in the Cookham and Maidenhead district. The implements occur in the gravel in such a way as to prove that they were brought into the position in which we find them at the same time and in the same manner as the other stones in the gravel, and the men who made them consequently lived at or before the date of the making of the beds of gravel. All the gravels in question were made by our rivers, and as the places where we find the implements are in some cases from 85 to 114 feet above the present level of the river, we infer that the valley has been deepened as much as from 85 to 114 feet since the time when the men who made the implements lived.

We now come to the Neolithic Period when, as we have seen, man was a much more civilised person than the earlier man is believed to have been. Some of his burial mounds still remain, and being oval in plan are known as long barrows. Wayland Smith's Cave, a mile to the east of Ashbury (p. 83), is composed of some 32 stones, the remains of a long barrow of Neolithic times.