25 JANUARY 1930, Page 21

Mr. Arthur E. Preston's The Church and Parish of St.

Nicholas Abingdon (Oxford University Press, 21s.) is a model of what scholarly research and local patriotism can produce. It is all the more valuable because the church, standing partly within and partly without the precincts of Abingdon Abbey, had at first no parish, strictly speaking, and thus belongs to a small and highly interesting class of foundations, As time went on, the precincts virtually became a parish, and were enlarged by subtracting portions of adjacent parishes. Then the process was reversed, and St. Nicholas, losing its parish, was combined with the neighbouring St. Helen's. The book is illustrated with views, portraits and plans.