Reading, Berkshire

“ Then followed one of the most disastrous periods of our county's history. In 1642, the High Sheriff of Berkshire refused to obey the king's command; the town of Reading was fortified, and King Charles passed through the town on his way to Oxford, his headquarters. Garrisons for the king were established at Farringdon, Abingdon, Wallingford, Greenwell House, Reading, Newbury, Donnington, and [Pg 16] Hungerford. Windsor was held by the Parliamentarians. Many of the people of Reading espoused the cause of the parliament, and left the town because the mayor and other chief men supported the king. ”

“ Turning from the records of civil strife, we read of the great rejoicings which took place at Reading on the occasion of the marriage of John of Gaunt with Blanche of Lancaster, which were solemnized in the great church of the Abbey. The festivities lasted fourteen days, and tilts and tournaments were held daily. During the reign of the Edwards, the trade of the country increased; [Pg 13] in the west, the farmers produced their rich fleeces, and the clothiers of Reading, Abingdon, and Newbury plied their looms and became wealthy. ”

“ While their convenient situation, abutting north and south of the old high road, which ran from Reading past Wokingham to Windsor, and so to London, brought these secluded villages into touch, not only with the chief town of the county, but also with the busier life of the Metropolis. And thus, even two hundred years ago, they were an attractive place of residence for many old families that have long since died out and passed away. ”

“ The population of Berkshire was steadily increasing during the whole of the last century. In 1801 the census gave a population of 110,752, and this had increased in 1851 to 170,243, and in 1901 to 256,509. That is to say the population of the county had more than doubled in the century.
In 1901 there were 72,217 people living in the county borough of Reading. Of the six municipal boroughs in Berkshire Windsor had the largest population, and the others in order of numbers of inhabitants were Maidenhead, Newbury, Abingdon, Wokingham, and Wallingford. ”

“ Probably the one most definitely connected with our county town Reading is the making of biscuits, an industry of quite modern growth. Printing, too, is carried on at important works at Reading belonging in many cases to London firms, and there are also more or less active printing presses at nearly all our towns and in country places too. Printing in Berkshire goes back certainly to 1528, when John Scolar set up a press in the Abbey of Abingdon and printed a breviary, a copy of which is preserved at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. ”

“ There arose the strong castle, built by Robert D'Oyly, and others were erected at Windsor, Reading, Newbury, and later at Farringdon, Brightwell, and Donnington. The history of the castles at Wallingford and Windsor will be recorded in this volume; Donnington endured an exciting siege during the Civil Wars; the others were speedily destroyed.
The foundation of the famous Abbey of Reading was the chief event for Berkshire in the reign of Henry I., a magnificent building, one of [Pg 10] the richest and most powerful in the kingdom. ”

“ The earliest signs of the existence of man in Berkshire are, as we have said, the implements of stone, mostly flint, found in the gravels; and the implements of the Palaeolithic Period take us back to a very old time, so old that the surface features of our district were then quite different from what we see now.
There is a fine series of Palaeolithic implements in the Reading Museum, and most of them have been found in gravel-pits near the river Thames in the Reading and Twyford district, or in the Cookham and Maidenhead district. ”

“ During Saxon times the greater part of Berkshire came under cultivation, and agriculture has ever since been the main industry of our county. The Vale of White Horse and its neighbourhood is one of the most fertile tracts in England, and there is also some rich pasture land on the alluvium by the rivers at Abingdon, Purley, Newbury, Woolhampton, Theale, Reading, and Twyford. ”

“ In no part of England have they left more enduring marks of their presence than in Berkshire. The names of [Pg 6] our towns and villages are nearly all Saxon, and mark the spot where their powerful families formed their settlements. We find the Rædingas at Reading, the Wokings at Wokingham, the Ardings at Ardington, the sons of Offa at Uffington, the Farringas at Farringdon, and scattered all over the county are the fields and hams, and steads and tons, which denote a Saxon origin. ”

“ Berkshire has not been remarkable for its guilds. The guild of the brotherhood of the Holy Cross at Abingdon has been already mentioned. At Maidenhead we find a guild incorporated in 1351, probably for the purpose of keeping in repair the bridge over the Thames, one of the most ancient in the county. This corporation was called "the Fraternity or Guild [Pg 136] of the Brothers and Sisters of Maidenhythe." Of minor guilds there would be examples in almost every village and town, but no records of them remain. The guilds of Reading are the only ones of real importance ”

“ Reading (61) , capital of Berkshire, on the Kennet, 36 m. N. of London; a town of considerable historic interest; was ravaged by the Danes; has imposing ruins of a 12th-century Benedictine abbey, &c.; was besieged and taken by Essex in the Civil War (1643) ; birthplace of Archbishop Laud; has an important agricultural produce-market, and its manufactures include iron-ware, paper, sauce, and biscuits.
Reading (79) , capital of Berks Co., Pennsylvania, on the Schuylkill River, 58 m. NW. of Philadelphia; has flourishing iron and steel works; population includes a large German settlement. ”

“ As to the Berkshire sites, I don’t see any reason for troubling you with their several titles. I am myself satisfied that the battle was fought here; but all the sites are somewhere on this range of chalk hills, of which the old White Horse is king. So now we will turn to the account of the great battle in the old chroniclers.
[68]
“About four days after the battle at Reading, King Æthelred and Alfred, his brother, fought against the whole army of the Pagans at Ashdown. ”

“ There are 198 civil parishes. Berkshire forms an archdeaconry in the diocese of Oxford; a small portion, however, falls within the diocese of Salisbury. There are 202 ecclesiastical parishes or districts, wholly or in part within the county. There are three parliamentary divisions, Northern or Abingdon, Southern or Newbury, and Eastern or Wokingham, each returning one member; while the parliamentary borough of Reading returns one member, and parts of the borough of Oxford and Windsor are included in the county. There are several important educational establishments in the county. ”

“ Each ruined keep and moss-grown pile, each village green and scattered hamlet, has a history all its own, often buried beneath the weight of years, and little heeded by the present race of pilgrims.
Many of these shrines of an elder age it is now our privilege to visit, and to recall the memories of bygone times that cluster round the revered spots of ancient Berkshire. And as we muse upon her glorious past, we shall hold in pious memory the valour of her sons who have writ her name so large in history, and strive to retain untarnished the honour and good name of the Royal County. ”

“ Indeed, its proud distinctive title may be traced to a period more remote than that of the building of the Castle by the Plantagenet Kings; Alfred the Great was born in Berkshire, and there were royal palaces in Saxon times at Farringdon and Old Windsor. Here the Confessor King oft resided. Here the Conqueror hunted the tall stags whom he loved "as though [Pg 2] he were their father." Hence from Saxon times to the present day Berkshire has deserved its royal title, and has been pre-eminently the county which kings delight to honour.
The history of Berkshire is indeed the history of England. ”

“ I can scarcely remember the time when I did not know the story, which indeed all Berkshire boys—or at any rate all Bath-road Berkshire boys—took as regularly as measles [pg 459] in early youth. But let me explain to New-World readers what I mean by a Bath-road Berkshire boy. Our royal county of Berks is in shape somewhat like a highlow or ancle-jack boot with the toe toward London, and at the tip of the toe Windsor Castle, which, as we all know, looks down on the Thames as it finally leaves the county, of which it has formed the northern boundary for more than one hundred miles. ”

“ The Ridge Way is one of the oldest roads in England. It enters Berkshire on the chalk downs above Ashbury at a level of 600 feet above the sea, and runs in an easterly [129] direction by Wayland Smith’s Cave and Uffington Castle; thence by Hackpen Hill to Letcombe Castle, along the top of the ridge north of West and East Ilsley. From here, turning to the right across the little valley on Compton Downs, the road probably reached the river Thames at Streatley. ”

“ We have already mentioned that Berkshire may be divided into three natural divisions. The northern or Vale of White Horse district is for the most part rather low-lying ground, but there is a small range of hills along the course of the Thames or Isis from Faringdon towards Oxford. Badbury Hill, 530 feet above the sea, and Faringdon Clump, 445 feet, are quite prominent from a distance, and some of the other hills from Buckland to Wytham look imposing when seen from the river. ”

“ In early days there was a considerable population living on the chalk downs, but by degrees they moved elsewhere, and for a long time the people were mainly gathered in the valleys, especially along the banks of the [65] rivers Thames and Kennet. Nearly all the Berkshire towns are situated upon one or other of those rivers. In quite modern times there has been a great increase of population in the eastern end of the county, large areas of heath-land having been built over. ”

“ Berkshire has produced a race which, for independent thought, daring schemes and achievements that have had world-wide consequences, has not been surpassed. We claim, also, that more of those first things that draw the chariot of progress forward so that people can see that it has moved, have been planned and executed by the inhabitants of the 950 square miles that constitute 003 the territory of Berkshire than can be credited to any other tract of equal extent in the United States. ”

“ Even at Rood Hall life had been as near an approach to perpetual motion as one could hope for in this world; but the excitement and the hurrying and scampering in Berkshire had a rustic flavour; there were moments that were almost repose, a breathing space between the blue river and the blue sky, in a world that seemed made of green fields and hanging woods, the plashing of waters, and the song of the lark. But in London the very atmosphere was charged with hurry and agitation; the freshness was gone from the verdure of the parks ”

“ Taking the word in this sense it may truly be said that the scenery of Berkshire County closely approximates to mountainous. In other parts of the State the isolated hills generally present a rounded outline, and with a few exceptions do not inspire those strong emotions which one must necessarily experience while standing like a pigmy among the piled-up, craggy hills of northern Berkshire. Here is found the most lofty elevation in the State—Saddle Mountain—whose summit is three thousand six hundred feet above tide water. ”

“ But we dearly love Berkshire for all that, love its rolling meadows, its fields of waving corn, the trees that go sweeping over its round hills like cloudlands of green; its placid river, its quiet streams, where the glad fish leap in spring and summer; love its birds, love its beasts, all the way up from the timid wee field-mouse to the saucy fox who leads so merry a life in the woods; and love its people, its peasantry—honest and true are they, sometimes rough, but always right. ”

“ A good deal of the district is stiff clay, and there is difficulty in getting a supply of good water, hence we find a number of towns and villages, like Wantage for instance, close to the chalk downs, where there are many springs.
The second or central division of Berkshire is the district of the chalk land. The downs of Berkshire are separated from the Chiltern Hills, which are the chalk hills of Oxfordshire, by the valley of the river Thames, whilst on the west the chalk downs run on into Wiltshire without any natural break. ”

“ Now it must be understood that not alone in Captain Stoddard's Stockbridge company had gentlemen filled up the places of the disaffected farmers in the ranks, but such was equally the case with the companies which had come in from the other towns, the consequence of which was that the present muster represented the wealth, the culture, and aristocracy of all Berkshire. There are far more people in Berkshire now than then ”

“ Mary Russell Mitford exclaims in one of her village sketches that there was not a pretty face in the country-side. The want of comeliness which is so noticeable in the southern parts of Berkshire is not confined to that county. The people of Berkshire and Hampshire, of the blonde type, are very much alike. But there are degrees; and if you want to see, I will not say a handsome, nor a pretty, but a passably fresh and pleasant face among the cottagers, you must go out of Selborne to some neighbouring village to look for it. ”

“ At last the skill of Fairfax and Cromwell proved too strong for the Royalists, and Bristol and Oxford fell. Donnington Castle, [Pg 18] under the gallant Sir John Boys, was the last fortress in Berkshire to yield, and he and his brave soldiers marched out with all the honours of war, having earned the admiration of both friend and foe.
Thus ended the Civil War in Berkshire. The King, now a prisoner, was allowed to stay at Caversham House with his children; but soon the end came, and the fatal scaffold at Whitehall ended the career of the unhappy monarch. ”