50 



FACTS AND OBSERVATIONS RELATING TO THE 



^umnt <State of t|e ?Cotoit of WoKnjIjam, 



IN THE COUNTIES OF BERKS AND WILTS ; 



By the late F. A. Caeeington, Esq., 



Recorder of ■Wokingham.* 



^^SHE Parish and Town of Wokingham, are both partly 

 ffffl^l ^^*^^te in the counties of Berks and Wilts. They are in 

 extent 8131 acres, and at the census of 1851, their population was 

 3752. The Berkshire portion of the town and parish lies in the 

 Hundred of Sonning, — the Wiltshire portion of both, including 

 the church, being in the Hundred of Arabrosebury, now Amesbury, 

 in the county of Wilts. ^ The name of the place is sometimes 

 spelled Wokingham, sometimes Okingham ; though probably 

 till of late years it was pronounced without the initial W;^ being 

 sounded as in the counties of Wilts, Gloucester, Worcester, and 

 Salop, and perhaps others; where W. is not sounded before o, or oo. 

 Thus we hear of 'ooster, and 'oolverhampton, and at Gloucester, we 

 should be told that "Jemmy 'ood" (the celebrated Gloucester miser) 

 " once ad a present of an 'oodcock ; " and in the ancient cuckoo song, 

 in the British Museum [Harl. MS. No. 978] written in the reign 

 of Henry the Third, the word "Wood" is spelled " Wde."^ 



* This Article was not completed at the time of Mr. Carrington's death : but 

 the MS. having been kindly sent to me by his relative Mrs. Marklove, I have 

 arranged it and added a note or two. With these exceptions it is printed just 

 as the author left it. J. E. Jackson, Leigh Delamere. 



' In the year 1845, under the statute 7 & 8 Vict. cap. 66, detached parts of 

 coiinties were annexed to the counties by which they were surrounded. 



- Oaksey in North Wilts is constantly written in very old documents 

 Wohkesey. J. E. J. 



* A coloured fac-simile of this song with music and words forms the frontis- 

 piece of Vol. 1. of Mr. Chappel's admirable work on the "Popular Music of the 

 olden time." Any young Lady could play and sing it from the original MS., 

 or the fac-simile, without the smallest difiiculty. The music is in the key of F, 

 and written in the fourth line tenor clef, the same in which music of the Handel 

 period is printed for the tenors in our Cathedrals. 



