The History of Wallingford. By John K. Hedges. 2 vols.
(Clowes and Co.)—Wallingford is one of those ancient towns which have comparatively fallen out of sight in recent times, partly because it lay off the great high coach-road, and now lies off the great high railroad to the west, and partly because it has had no special trade or manufacture to support it. In the Saxon and Norman times, however, Wallingford played a prominent part in our national history, especially in the reigns of Stephen and Henry I., when the Empress Maud found a home within the walla of its castle, which had been built on the ruins of an earlier structure by order of the Conqueror. But even a greater antiquity is claimed for Walling- ford by Mr. Hedges ; it was probably the Callera Atrebatunt of the era of the Roman occupation, and Roman roads met at it, or near, it. Roman • coins and urns have been found on its site,
and there are also other proofs of the presence of the Roman eagles. Indeed, Mr. Hedges sees reason to believe that, wherever Julius Cmsar crossed the Thames, he probably pushed on his march as far westward as Wallingford. The castle is connected in subsequent history with the names of King John and his Barons, Simon de Mont- fort, Piers Gaveston, Queen Isabella and Mortimer, and Richard and Edmund, Earls of Cornwall, whose favourite residence it became, and. who spent large sums on adorning it with almost royal magnificence. For its subsequent history under the Tailors, for its architectural, and ecclesiastical antiquities, and for its history as a Parliamentary borough, we must content ourselves by referring our readers to the pages of Mr. Hedges, to whom the students of English topography': are much indebted for a most complete monograph on a town that, as yet, has not had a worthy historian.
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