Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire The remaining Buckinghamshire book, The History of
Berk- hampstead Common, by G. H. Whybrow (the Commons, Open Spaces and Footpaths Society) deserves the emphasis put upon it by Professor G. M. Trevelyan in his brief preface. If anyone wishes to understand the history and meaning of our commons, I should say that Berkhamsted . is the very best subject of study in the whole list. It is of ex ceeding beauty in itself and of wide extent ; and the crises of our land history are all focused there. The struggles came to a head not so long ago, as Lord Eversley has recorded, when navvies from London led by the defenders of our open
spaces assembled to pull down Lord Brownlow's iron railings. The struggle itself, now told in fuller detail, and the litigation which followed are of perennial interest. Berkhamsted Common takes its place alongside Runnymede itself. The National Trust has at Ashridge and about the Common its most spacious possession. The place is full of archaeo- logical interest, going back at least as far as the digging of Gran's Dyke ; and recently the antiquity of the place has been grievously illustrated by the use of the stones of a Roman villa for mending the road.
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