fe E R 



283 



B E R 



rately, thot it is sufficient to limit our notice to the establish- 

 ments for education. In the 15th of Henry VIII. the inha- 

 bitants of Berkhampsted agreed to appropriate the lands ol 

 their guild or brotherhood of St. John the Baptist (which 

 had formerly supported an hospital for poor sick persons 

 and lepers) to the erection and support of a free school in 

 the town. Dr. Incent, Dean of St. Paul's, London, who 

 was a native of the town, and president of the guild, actively 

 promoted this transaction, and added to the endowment his 

 own lands in the town. Afterwards fearing that the name 

 of ' brotherhood' might render the endowment insecure, he 

 procured a charter of incorporation from the king, which 

 was supplied by a new charter in the following reign. Au- 

 thority having thus been obtained to erect and found 'one 

 free school within the said town, of one meet man being a 

 schoolmaster, and the other meet man being an usher, 

 for the teaching of children in grammar, freely, without 

 any exaction or request of money for the teaching of the 

 same children not exceeding the number of 14-1,' the present 

 school-house, a large and strong brick building near the 

 church, was erected; and in the next reign the establish- 

 ment was incorporated as a royal foundation. All Souls 

 College is visitor under the charter of Edward VI. The 

 annual value of the property is now 634/., and the salary of 

 the master (appointed by the king) is 250/., and that of the 

 usher 1 25A ; but for a long time this rich foundation has 

 been altogether inefficient. An old parishioner stated, in 

 ]30, to the commissioners for inquiry concerning charities, 

 that he did not remember more than five free boys in the 

 school at any one time during the last fifty or sixty years. 

 The master and usher of this school have for a long time 

 been either irregularly resident or non-resident (1835). 



A charity school was founded in 1727 under the will of 

 Thomas Bourne, who bequeathed 8000/. for the erection 

 and endowment of a school, the property of which is at 

 present 9300?., in New South Sea Annuities, yielding an 

 annual interest of 279/. Under this charity twenty boys 

 and ten sirls are taught, clothed, and provided with books ; 

 their parents also receive Is. a week each. They are 

 n-ceived at the age of six and upwards, and remain till 

 fourteen. The boys are taught English, writing, arithmetic, 

 and the girls English and work, with writing in the last 

 year of their stay. The roaster and mistress are at liberty 

 to take any number of pay scholars ; the former has a 

 salary of 30/. and the latter of 1 jl. There is also an allow- 

 ance of 21. 10*. to each for firing. 



(Chauncy's Historical Antiquities if Hertfordshire ; 

 Clutterbuck's History and Antiquities of thr Count;/ of 

 Hertford; Cough's Camden's Itritunnia ; Brayley's ' Hert- 

 fordshire ' in the Beauties of En gland and Watef, Titenty- 

 flfth Report of the Commissioners aj/poinled to inquire 

 concerning Charities, &c.) 



BERKSHIRE, nr, as it is written by our older topogra- 

 phers, BARKSH1RE,* an English county in the midland 

 district, included within the basin of the Thames, which 

 forms, in its sinuous course from the neighbourhood of 

 Lechlade in Gloucestershire to below Windsor, the northern 

 boundary of the county, and separates it from the counties 

 of Gloucester, Oxford, and Bucks, which lie on the other side 

 of the river. The county of Wilts borders Berkshire on 

 the west ; the line of division between them, though irre- 

 gular, has a general bearing N.N.W. and S.S.E. from the 

 bank of the Thames to a few miles south of Hungerford. 

 A line, running with tolerable regularity east and west, and 

 coinciding in one part with the course of the river Auborne 

 or Emborne, a feeder of the Kennet, and in another part with 

 the course of the river Loddon, a feeder of the Thames, 

 .separates the county from Hampshire; and on the south - 

 i line running north-east and south-west separates it 

 from Surrey. 



The dimensions of the county are as follows : length, 

 cist and west from the border of Wiltshire between Htin- 

 perford and Lambourn to Old Windsor on the Thames, 

 f irty-thrce miles, nearly ; breadth, north and south from 

 the bank of the Thames north-.wcst of Oxford to the border 



'The county vOiich we cH Barkfhire was antiently named by the Latin 



writers '* ll'Tcli--ri:i ;" t,\ u,,- s.iv.ms Bepjloc-rcyne (Rerroc-scyre), uhicli 



i. derives from Berroc, a certain wood where jfrewiili-nty 



if l-il: other* from an mk disliarked (winch the word hTuke IIHMII.I, ;U 



' -*. the iuh.iKii.itits us.- t t-i mivt to con. ult :>lmt their 



In Wan I'l frfrsrT/<v<>1. ii. ful. 21 it i- i :ill. .1 



Bnrkthir The n:tmc, \luit-ver tie its orii;ilnl meaning, seem* to bo included 

 in tin- appeib . y C*nr('. Gall. v. 31) to it tribe whicli inha- 



bited this county the Bi-broc-i : for bark and broc arc in fact the name. 



of Hampshire, near Newbury, thirty-one miles, nearly. A 

 line of about fifty-two miles may be drawn from the north- 

 western extremity of the county to Old Windsor, but this 

 line, from the irregularity of the northern boundary, will 

 not lie entirely within the county. The area of the Bounty 

 is given at 758 square miles, equal to 485,120 acres, in the 

 table appended to Arrowsmith's great map of England ; 

 or at 752 square miles, or 481,280 acres (or computing by 

 the separate parishes, 472,270 acres), according to the popu- 

 lation returns. The population tn 1831 was 145,389. 



Reading, the county town, lies thirty-eight miles in a 

 straight line west by south of St. Paul's, London, or thirty- 

 eight miles (measured from Hyde Park corner) by the road 

 through Windsor Great Park, or thirty-nine through Maiden- 

 head. 



Surface, Rivers, and other natural features. The prin- 

 cipal high land in this county consists of a range of downs 

 running W. by N. or W.N.W. from the banks of the 

 Thames between Reading and Wallingford, into the north- 

 ern part of Wiltshire. These hills, which, with the Marl- 

 borough Downs in Wiltshire and the Chilterns of Buck- 

 inghamshire, form one chalky range, rise in some parts to 

 a considerable elevation. At Scutchamfly station, on the 

 Cuckhamsley hills, a part of this range, a short distance 

 south-east of Wantage, the height is 853 feet, and the 

 White Horse Hill, which forms a part of the range, and is 

 near the western border of the county, is 893 feet high. It 

 may be observed of the wltole chalk range of which these 

 Berkshire hills form a part, that the northern or north- 

 western declivity is more elevated and has a steeper slope 

 than the other. This declivity is also marked by its 

 being bare of wood and covered with a fine turf. These 

 characters are preserved in that part which lies within 

 Berkshire. The southern slope of the range, which de- 

 scends to the vale watered by the Kennet, sinks for the 

 most part gently, the chalk disappearing under reddish 

 clay, sand, and gravel. The western part of the chalk 

 range, which is the most elevated, is used for sheep-walks. 

 These are of good quality, but not to be compared in extent 

 with those of Wiltshire 'or Dorsetshire. The eastern part 

 of the range is sufficiently covered with soil to become 

 xrable. The streams which rise on the northern declivity 

 low into the Thames ; those which rise on the southern 

 slope flow into the Kennet, which drains the waters of the 

 south part of the county, or into a small stream which falls 

 into the Thames a few miles above Reading. There are 

 some hills which skirt the valley of the Thames in the 

 northern part of the county, from the neighbourhood of 

 Farringdon to below Oxford. These hills consist of shelly 

 oolite, and calcareous and shelly sand with gritstone. 

 (Greenough's Geological Map of England.) Between 

 these hills and the chalk range, already described, is the 

 fertile vale of White Horse, which is drained by the Ock. 

 The vale of White Horse opens into the low lands which 

 line the right bank of the Thames from Abingdon to a 

 point a few miles above Wallingford, at which point the 

 vale of Aylesbury, drained by the Thame, opens into the 

 valley of the Thames on the left bank, just below Dorchester. 

 There is some high land (4B3 feet high in one part) on the 

 border of the county towards Bagshot in Surrey. 



The south and east sides of Berkshire have a large propor- 

 tion of woodland. LelanA, in his Itinerary, \-t!\.ii. fol. 2, speaks 

 of a ' great warfeage of timbre and fier wood at the west 

 ende of the (Maidenhead) bridge, and this wood,' he adds, 

 ' cummithoutof Barkshir, and the great woddis of the forest 

 of Windelesore and the greate Frithe.' The predominant 

 wood is hazel, intermixed with oak, ash, beech, and alder. 

 The whole of the south part of the county was once occupied, 

 by the forest of Windsor, which extended in one direction 

 into Buckinghamshire, and in another into Surrey as far 

 as Chertsey, Cobham, and even Guildford, and reached west- 

 ward as far as Hungerford along the vale of the Kutnu>t. 

 The vale of the Kennet was disforested by charter in the 

 year 12'2f>; and a considerable part of Windsor Forest is 

 now in a state of cultivation, an act having passed for its 

 inclosure in the year 1813. A great part of Bagshot Heath 

 was within the boundaries of the forest. (Lysons's Mua 

 Hritannia.) 



The principal river of Berkshire is the Thames which 

 however is not, in any part, included within (lie cminty, Imt 

 forms, as already noticed, its northern border. The direct 

 distance between the two points where the river first (ouches 

 the county and where it finally leaves it is about fifty two 



2 O 2 



