BUCKLEBURY By Arthur L. Humphreys Some years ago Mr. Arthur
L. Humphreys produced a sub- stantial monograph on East Hendred, as an example of what a parish history should be. He has now done a similar service, on an even larger scale, for Bucklebury : a Berkshire Parish, the Home of Bolingbroke (published by the author at York Lodge, Reading, 68s.). This fine quarto, well printed on good paper and strongly bound in half vellum, runs to over 600 pages, fifty of which are devoted to an index, and would seem to contain almost everything that is known about the place, including charters and deeds, much of the parish register, innumerable place-names, pedigiees, the surviving court rolls (mostly late), correspondence and local jottings. Bucklebury is one of the many happy little English villages that stand apart from the main stream of history. Its sole Maim to notice is that for fourteen years (1701-15) it was the home of that clever profligate, Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke who married Frances Winchcoinbe, heiress to the manor and a direct descendant of the sixteenth-century clothier known as "Jack of Newbury." St. John entertained his friends at Buckleburz.r and perhaps planted its famous oak
avenue. But, having spent his wife's money lavishly he deserted her for other women and then went into exile alone. At her death in 1718 her nephew became heir to Bucklebury, and Bolingbroke, as he then was, is alleged to have vented his spite by felling much of the timber. Mr. Humphreys is to be congiatuhtted -on the thoroughness of his research for this imposing and instructive volume.
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