THE MANOR AND PARISH RECORDS OF- MEDMEN-.
HAM. By Arthur H.- Plaisted. (Longman. 15s. net.) .
Ti&F. Vicar of Medmenham has compiled a full and inter-• esting history of his charming village. He draws freely both on the recorded evidence and on his local knowledge, and he gives many details—about the recent enlargement of the church, for example, and the changes in the ownership of the land—which are not readily available elsewhere. The chapter on the Cistercian Abbey is well done and contains a plan of the buildings, both old, -sham-antique and modern, which are commonly associated with Sir Francis Dashwood's " Hell Fire Club " of 1755-63. Mr. Plaisted seems inclined to agree with recent authorities that .the club was not such a- terrible affair as some of its members and their political. ativeniaries pretended. The most famous native of the- village was Cardinal Pole, whose father married Lady Margaret Plantagenet and lived at Bockmer, to the north of the Henley-• Marlow road. When Henry to revenge himself on- Pole, executed his mother and brother, he confiscated their estates, and thus Medmenham passed to the Duflields and others. The great house of Danesfield recalls a prominent_ Teactarian. Charles Scott-Murray, who joined the Homan_ Church and made his- home a centre of Homan influence in- mid-Victorian days. Mr. Plaisted rightly pays attention also to the smaller houses, some of which are very old, though. they have all been more or less modernized. The book is exceptionally well illustrated with photographs and drawings ; there are; too, an appendix of documents and a good index.- It would be well if every village possessed such a competently written history.
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