Trained scholarship and intimate local knowledge combine to make Mr.
Reginald W. Jeffery's Thornton-le-Dale (Wakefield :
West Yorkshire Printing 5s.) one of the best parish histories that we have seen. Co.,Mr. Jeffery has done good work for the history of Oxfordshire, notably by his recent hook On Great Rollright, but he seems equally familiar with the North Riding, past and present. Thornton Dale, as the village is usually called, lies between Pickering and Whitby and in the Middle Ages was part of the Forest of Pickering. Thus, its early annals abound in poaching affrays as well as in the feuds that vexed most rural districts until the Tudors came. Nothing of importance ever happened at Thornton. It' as, and is, a typical Yorkshire moorland village. Thus its history, as here told in detail, is representative and thoroughly interesting. The Commonwealth minister, for example, survived the Restoration and the Act of Uniformity. Thornton people did not push matters to extremes, though Londoners might.
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