B E R 



890 



B E R 



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

 number of vicarage* is considerable : in Lysoru's Ma%na 

 Britannia, where the parishes are given at US, the nuinlH-r 

 of vicarages is given at 67. The county is wholly in the I 

 diocese of Salisbury, ami in the errli-u-iic il province of 

 Canterbury, and forms an nrchilcaconry by itself: the arch- 

 deacon takos his title from the county. It is divided into 

 four niral deaneries Abingdon, Newbury, Reading, and 

 WtUingfonL 



Berkshire is in the Oxford circuit : Reading and Abing- 

 don are the assize towns. The Lent, or Spring assizes are 

 held at Reading, the Summer assizes at Abingdon. The 

 quarter sessions for the county arc held as follows : Kpi- 

 phany at Reading. Easter nt Newbury, Hilary at Abingdon, 

 and Michaelmas either at Abingdon or Reading, as the ma- 

 gistrates shall determine. 



Nine members are returned to parliament from Berkshire 

 throe for the county itself, two each for Reading and 

 New Windsor, and one each for Abingdon and Wallingford. 

 The only change in the number of members made by the 

 Reform Bill, was to reduce the members for Wallingford 

 from two to one, for Abingdon previously returned only one. 

 The county members are nominated nt Abingdon, and the 

 poll for the county is taken at Reading, Abingdon, New- 

 nury, Wantage, Wokingham, Maidenhead, Great Faring- 

 don, and East llsley. Abingdon was the place where the 

 poll was taken in case of a contest before the Reform 

 Bill. 



Civil History and Antirpiititi. The Atrebatcs or Atre- 

 balii are considered to have been the tribe inhabiting this 

 district; their name points them out ns a colony of the 

 Atrebates (people of Artois) in Gaul, who were, as Csesar 

 informs us, Belgzc, and of Germanic origin. (De Bell. Gall. 

 ii. -1.) 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 men- 

 tioned by Ciesar under the name of Ancalites), submitted 

 to CtDsar when he crossed the Thames in pursuit of Cassi- 

 velaunus, and advanced into the heart of the country. In 

 the division made by the Romans of that part of the island 

 which they reduced to subjection, Berkshire appears to have 

 been included in Britannia prima. 



Of this remote period Berkshire retains some memorials 

 in the traces of ancient roads and other antiquities. The 

 mads or parts of roads run in different directions. The most 

 marked is a part of that which led from Glevum (Gloucester) 

 to Londiniutn (London). It enters Berkshire from Wilt- 

 shire, not far from Lambourn, and runs S.E. to Spintc 

 (Speen), where it appears to have met another Roman road 

 from Aquco Solis (Bath) to Londinium (London). From 

 Rpinffl its couise to Ixmdinium does not appear to have been 

 ascertained, though some traces of it appeared a few years 

 since on Bagshot Heath, where it was vulgarly called ' the 

 Devil's Highway.' The traces of other Roman roads arc- 

 not of any great extent or importance. The Ikening Street 

 (of British origin) passed through Berkshire, but its course 

 is disputed. Some consider ' the Kid'_:o Way,' which runs 

 along the edge of the chalk range over East and West lUley 

 Downs, Cuckhamsley Hills. &c, to be the true Ikening 

 Street; while others contend for a line of road under the 

 same range through or near Blewbury, Wantage, Spars- 

 holt, &c. To the west of Wantage, where this last line is 

 most clearly to be traced, it is called luklclon Way. ( Lysons's 

 Magnn Hritannia ; Wise's Account n/tume Antiquities in 

 Hertuhire ) 



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

 hat been satisfactorily settled, is Kpinic. The name and 

 the distance* egret- in identifying it with Speen, a ullage 

 near Newhury. Vet it is remarkable that no Roman re- 

 mains appear to have been discovered here none ul roast 

 unViriK to sliow the existence of such a station. Bibractc, 

 .-.mrd in the twelfth Her of Richard of Cirencestcr. is 

 i liy Whitaker nt Bray ; though the distance IH-IMCCD 

 LooiiOMfll and Bibraote diners so much from that between 

 London and Bray as to occasion grcnt dilliciilu. 1'ontcs, 

 other Roman station, has been fixed by H,',rs!..\- (I'.ri- 

 tannia Knmana) near Old Windsor, but others prefer S 

 in Middlesex. Calleva or Caleva wan thought by Camdi-n 

 to have been Wallingford; but ihouuh the remains of 

 Roman antiquity found there point out Wallingford as the 

 site of au important Roman station, yet the situation as- 



signed to Calleva in the Itinerary of Antoninus cannot be 

 made to agree with Wullingford, the Human name of which 

 is therefore unknown to us. Calleva has also been Axed by 

 conjecture at Coley Manor, near Reading, but SiU-ln-ster iii 

 Hampshire, just on the border of tin- more gene- 



rally preferred. 



The vallum, which appears to have surrounded the town 

 of Wallingford, was unquestionably a Roman work ; at the 

 south-west angle it is very entire for the space of about 270 

 paces on the south side and 370 on the west. This vallum 

 is single, and appears to have had a wet ditch, which run 

 dered it very secure. 



There are remains of camps in several pans of tin- 

 county, supposed to have been occupied by the KM 

 though some of them are probably of British origin. I . 

 ton Castle, an oval earth work on the summit of V 

 Horse Hill, 700 feet in diameter from east to west, and Mil) 

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

 by a double vallum, or embankment, the inner one In^h, 

 and commanding an extensive view in every direction, the 

 outer one slighter. Letcorae or Sagbury Cat-tie, on Let- 

 come Downs, north-east of Lambourn, is almost circular, 

 has a double vallum, and encloses an area of nearly twenty- 

 six acres, but whether this is independent of the spa. 

 cupied by the entrenchments and ditches does not appear. 

 Another camp or earth-work, called Hardwell Camp, it 

 about half a mile north-west of Uflington Castle ; it is an 

 entrenchment 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 1 80. Near Little Coxwcll, in the 

 neighbourhood of Faringdon, are the remains of a square 

 camp ; and at the other extremity of the county there is a 

 strong entrenchment, 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 ' Ctcsar's Camp.' Remains of works 

 British or Roman are also found near the road from A i 

 don to Faringdon, five or six miles from the latter (i 

 bury Camp), and on Sinodun Hill, near Wittcnham, on the 

 Thames. There are circular camps near Ashdown Park, a 

 little way from Lambourn (Ashbury Camp or Alfred's 

 Castle), and on Badbury Hill, not far from Faringdon ; hut 

 of the probable origin of the former we have no information 

 perhaps it was Danish, as also the latter is sup; 

 to be. 



Many barrows are found, especially one on the chalk 

 hills N. of Lambourn, covered irregularly with large 

 stones; three of the stones have a fourth laid on them m 

 the manner of the British cromlechs. Mr. Wise inclines 

 to think this is a Danish monument, while Mess;-. l.\ "in 

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



[W.yl.nd 



it is called Wayland Smith ;' and they have a tradition 

 if an invisible smith residing here, who would shoe a tra- 



