THE VICTORIA HISTORY OF THE COUNTY OF BERK- SHIRE. Edited
by William Page and the Rev. P. H. Ditch- field, assisted by J. H. Cope. Vol. III. (St. Catherine Press. 63s. net.) That magnificent enterprise, the Victoria County History, has advanced another step towards completion with the appearance of the third volume of the history of Berkshire. It is a purely topographical volume, dealing in some five hundred closely-printed pages with ten of the twenty hundreds of Berkshire and with the royal borough of Windsor. But for anyone who is interested in local antiquities, in family history and heraldry, in the vicissitudes of landed estates and in the architecture of many periods, the book, with its wealth of exact detail and its plans, photographs and prints, will have an irresistible fascination. Eastern Berks, between Windsor and Reading, contains an abundance of very ancient villages and manor houses. Windsor and Reading naturally fill many pages. Windsor Castle is described in detail, and the history of the borough is of interest down to the days when George the Third took part in the elections, and succeeded, with the help of the household and royal trades- men, in ousting Admiral Keppel. The ruins of Reading Abbey are, one must confess, disappointing to visit, but the story of the relations between the monastery and the town is instructive and well told. The burgesses were always at feud with the monks, but they found, after the destruction of the monasteries, that the abbey's patronage was not easily to be replaced.. Archbishop Laud, Reading's most famous son, was, by the way, born m 1573—not 1593, as this almost impeccable volume states ; his father was one of the leading clothiers who restored the fortunes of the town. The one thing lacking in this scholarly volume is an index, and for that one must waft till the final volume for Berkshire appears.
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