1011 



BERKSHIRE. 



BERKSHIRE. 



1042 



Canal and the Great Western railway pass through Uffington. In this 

 parish is the figure of the White Horse, which will be more particularly 

 referred to presently. Winkfield, 12 miles E. from Reading, an exten- 

 sive parish, said to measure 8 miles across : population, 2185. In it 

 besides the ordinary parish school is a large Agricultural school of 

 Industry, founded in 1835 by the late Rev. William Rham, who was 

 vicar of Winkfield. Under his supervision it was productive of great 

 benefit, and became a model for similar institutions in country parishes. 



Divisions for Ecclesiastical and Legal Purposes. The number of 

 parishes in Berkshire has been given above. The number of vicarages 

 ia considerable. The county is wholly in the diocese of Oxford, and 

 in the ecclesiastical province of Canterbury, and forms an archdeaconry 

 by itself. The archdeacon takes his title from the county. It is 

 divided into four rural deaneries Abingdon, Newbury, Reading, and 

 Wallingford. 



Berkshire is in the Oxford circuit : Reading and Abingdon are the 

 assize towns. The Lent or spring assizes are held at Reading, the 

 summer assizes at Abingdon. The quarter sessions for the county 

 are held at Reading in January and July, at Abingdon in April and 

 October. County courts are held at Abingdon, Faringdon, Hunger- 

 ford, Newbury, Reading, Wallingford, and Windsor. There are 

 savings banks at Abingdon, Faringdon, Hungerford, Maidenhead, 

 Newbury, Reading, Wallingford, Wantage, Windsor, and Wokingham. 

 The amount owing to depositors on November 20th 1851 was 

 384.636J. 18. 8d. 



Nine members are returned to Parliament from Berkshire three 

 for the county itself, two each for Reading and New Windsor, and one 

 each for Abingdon and Wallingford. The county members are nomi- 

 nated at Abingdon. 



Ciril History and Antiquities. The Atrebates or Atrebatii are con- 

 sidered to have been the tribe inhabiting this district. Mr. Whitaker 

 and some other modern antiquaries consider that the Bibroci inhabited 

 the hundred of Bray, and the Segontiaci a small part of the county 

 bordering on Hampshire. The Bibroci and Segontiaci, and perhaps 

 the Atrebates (for some consider these to be the people mentioned by 

 Csesar under the name of Ancalites), submitted to C;csar when he 

 crossed the Thames in pursuit of Cassivelaunus, and advanced into 

 the heart of the country. 



Of the Roman period Berkshire retains some memorials in the 

 traces of ancient roads and other antiquities. The roads or parts of 

 roads run in different directions. The moat marked is a part of that 

 which led from Glevum (Gloucester) to Londinium (London). It 

 enters Berkshire from Wiltshire, not far from Lambourn, and runs 

 south-east to Spinae (Speen), where it appears to have met another 

 Roman road from Aquae Solis (Bath) to Londinium (London). From 

 Spinze ita course to Londinium does not appear to have been precisely 

 ascertained, though some traces of it appeared a few years since on 

 Bagshot Heath, where it was vulgarly called ' the Devil's Highway." 

 The Icknield Street (of British origin) passed through Berkshire, but 

 ita course is disputed. Some consider ' the Ridge Way,' which runs 

 along the edge of the chalk ridge over East and West Ilsley Downs, 

 Cuckhamsley Hills, &c., to be the true Icknield Street ; while others 

 contend for a line of road under the same range through or near 

 Blewbury, Wantage, Sparsholt, &c. To the west of Wantage, where 

 this last line is most clearly to be traced, it is called Ickleton Way. 



The only Roman station in the county, the site of which has been 

 satisfactorily settled, is Spinse. The name and the distances agree in 

 identifying it with Speen, a village near Newbury. Yet no Roman 

 remains sufficient to show the existence of such a station have been 

 discovered here. Bibracte, mentioned in the 12th iter of Richard of 

 Cirencester, is fixed by Whitaker at Bray ; though the distance 

 between Londinium and Bibracte differs so much from that between 

 London and Bray as to occasion great difficulty. It is now generally 

 placed at Wickham Bushes. Fontes, another Roman station, has been 

 fixed by Horsley ('Britannia Romana ') near Old Windsor, but Staines 

 in Middlesex is generally preferred. Calleva or Caleva was thought 

 by Camden to have been Wallingford ; but though the remains of 

 Roman antiquity found there point out Wallingford as the site of an 

 important Roman station, yet the situation assigned to Calleva in the 

 ' Itinerary ' of Antoninus cannot be made to agree with Wallingford, 

 the Roman name of which is therefore unknown to us. Calleva has 

 also been fixed by conjecture at Coley Manor, near Reading, but it is 

 now usually assigned to Silchester in Hampshire, just on the border 

 of thig county. 



The vallum which appears to have surrounded the town of Wal- 

 lingford was unquestionably a Roman work ; at the south-west angle 

 it is tolerably entire for the space of about 270 paces on the south side 

 and 370 paces on the west. This vallum is single, and appears to have 

 had a wet ditch, which rendered it very secure. 



There are remains of camps in several parts of the county, supposed 

 to have been occupied by the Romans, though some of them are pro- 

 bably of British origin. Uffington Castle, an oval earthwork on the 

 summit of White Horse Hill, 700 feet in diameter from east to west, 

 and 600 feet from north to south, is one of these. It is surrounded by 

 a double vallum or embankment, the inner one high, and command- 

 ing an extensive view in every direction, the outer one slighter. Lot- 

 come or Sagbury Castle, on Letcome Downs, nnrth-east of Lambourn, 

 is almost circular, hag ft double vallum, and incloses an area of nearly 



OEOO. DIV. VOL. I. 



26 acres, but whether this is independent of the space occupied by the 

 intrenchments and ditches does not appear. Another camp or earth- 

 work, called Hardwell Camp, is about half a mile north-west of 

 Uffington Castle ; it is of square form, where not broken by the steep 

 edge of the hill, surrounded by a double vallum, and in size about 

 140 paces by 180 paces. Near Little Coxwell, in the neighbourhood of 

 Faringdon, are the remains of a square camp ; and at the other extre- 

 mity of the county there is a strong intrenchment, of irregular form, 

 on Bagshot Heath; near Easthampstead, 560 paces in length, and 280 

 in breadth near the middle ; it is supposed to be a Roman work, and 

 is commonly called ' Caesar's Camp.' Remains of works British or 

 Roman are also found near the road from Abingdon to Faringdon, five 

 or six miles from the latter (Cherbury Camp), and on Siuodun Hill, 

 near Wittenham, on the Thames. There are circular camps near Ash- 

 down Park, a little way from Lamboum (Ashbury Camp, or Alfred's 

 Castle), and on Badbury Hill, not far from Faringdon ; but of the pro- 

 bable origin of the former we have no information, perhaps it was 

 Danish, as also the latter is supposed to be. 



Many barrows are found, especially one on the chalk hills north of 

 Lambourn, covered irregularly with large stones ; three of the stones 

 have a fourth laid on them in the form of a cromlech. Mr. Wise 

 inclines to think this is a Danish monument, while Messrs. Lysons 

 would assign to it a British origin. By the country people it is called 

 ' Wayland Smith ; ' and they have a tradition of an invisible smith 

 residing here, who would shoe a traveller's horse if it was left here 

 for a short time with a piece of money by way of payment. Scott, it 

 will be remembered, has made use of the tradition in his novel of 

 Keuilworth. The tradition is evidently a corruption of the myth of 



\Vayland Smith's Cave. 



the northern hero Weland or Volundr. Whether what is called the 

 Dragon Hill, just under the White Horse, is a natural or an artificial 

 mound is a matter of doubt. Several barrows clustered together on 

 Lambourn Downs go by, the name of the ' Seven Barrows,' but they 

 are more numerous than the name implies, A curious stone called 

 the 'Blowing-stone' is situated at Kingston Lisle, five miles due north 

 from Lambourn. At the back of this stone grows an old elm-tree : 

 the stone itself is a species of red-sandstone ; it is about 3 feet high, 

 3 feet 6 inches broad, and 2 feet thick, but it is rough and of rather 

 irregular surface. It has several holes in it of various sizes. If a 

 person blows in at any one of three of the holes, an extremely loud 

 noise is produced, something between a note upon a French horn and 

 the bellowing of a calf, and this can be heard in a favourable state of 

 weather at Faringdon Clump, a distance of about six miles. There 

 seems no doubt that there are chambers in the stone, as an irregular 

 broken hollow at the north end of it has plainly formed a part of 

 another place, at which a similar sound might once have been pro- 

 duced. In the neighbourhood there exists a tradition that this stone 

 was used for the purpose of giving an alarm on the approach of an enemy. 

 When the Saxons became possessed of South Britain, Berkshire 

 was included in the kingdom of the West Saxons. It was partly 

 wrested from them by the powerful and ambitious Offa, king of 

 the Mercians, but afterwards returned under the away of the West 

 Saxon kings. It formed part of Wessex under the reign of Ethel- 

 wulph (son of Egbert), whose youngest son, the great Alfred, was 

 bom at Wantage in this county. In the reign of Ethelred I., the 

 brother and immediate predecessor of Alfred, the Danes invaded 

 Berkshire and possessed themselves of Reading. Hero they were 

 attacked by the West Saxons. In the first engagement the Danes 



3 x 



