Part 4

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 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.

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.

Of the persons registered as inhabitants of Berkshire in 1901, 398 were in hospital, 150 of whom were in the Royal Berkshire Hospital at Reading; 1638 were in Lunatic Asylums, of whom 646 were in the County Lunatic Asylum, Cholsey; 657 in the Criminal Lunatic Asylum at Broadmoor, and 335 in the Holloway Sanatorium, Egham, which is in the county of Surrey, but is included in Berkshire for registration purposes.

One man and one woman were described as over 100 years of age and they were both living in Reading. Five men and thirteen women were described as between 95 and 100 years of age.

In the military barracks in the county there were 392 officers and 1860 non-commissioned officers and men--the 344 cadets at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, being included amongst the officers.

The number of men engaged in the general or local government of the county was 1423. The number engaged in teaching as schoolmasters, professors, etc., was 590 men and 1712 women.

In many counties a large number of persons are described as living in ships, barges or boats, but in Berkshire the number in 1901 was only nine.

10. AGRICULTURE.

The cultivation of the soil has probably been carried on, to some extent, since the days of the people who made the stone implements, though they doubtless chiefly concerned themselves with the chase. The early inhabitants lived partly on the chalk land and partly on the banks of the rivers. The art of cultivation no doubt spread by degrees amongst the natives, and not only the flat chalk surfaces but even the steep sides of the downs were brought into service, and they may be seen now scored with horizontal terraces in many places, partly the result of cultivation in long strips on the hill side, and partly made intentionally to assist cultivation. Terraces of this kind are found in many parts of England and are known as "linchets" or "lynchets." They form a marked feature in the landscape, near Compton Beauchamp for instance, and were at one time thought to be old sea beaches, but this was an error; the sea had nothing to do with their formation. They are cultivation terraces in most cases, though in some instances they may be, at least in part, due to landslip or to a natural accumulation of rain wash.

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 the eighteenth and the early part of the nineteenth centuries corn-growing was very profitable, and a great deal of land was laid down in corn, some of it being far from suited to the purpose. In later times the profit on corn has been reduced and some of this land has been turned to other uses or has gone out of cultivation. In 1905 the area in Berkshire devoted to corn was 98,968 acres, and in 1908 the area was 96,169 acres, a reduction of 2799 acres. The reduction was mainly in the crop of wheat, there was only a slight reduction in barley, whilst there was an increase in the amount of oats. The relative amount of wheat, barley, and oats grown in 1908 is shown in the diagram at the end of this volume.

Berkshire is not one of the great fruit-growing counties. In 1908 the acreage returned as orchards was 2942.

The total amount of arable land in the county in 1908 was 179,047 acres. This includes the land under clover, sainfoin, and grasses under rotation 35,760 acres. The area of permanent grass was 175,017 acres, making a total of 354,064 acres under either crops or grass.

At the present time the production of milk is one of the most important industries of the county, the chief dairy district being the northern part and the tracts along the rivers. In 1908 the number of cattle in the county was 48,118. A cheese like single Gloucester is made in the Vale of White Horse.

The number of sheep in Berkshire was returned as 167,413. They do not belong to the breed formerly known as "Berkshire." This was a large animal with black face and black or mottled legs, which is now replaced by other kinds. The county has long been famous for its pigs, which numbered 26,171 in the year 1908.

In former days the vine was cultivated in Berkshire, and a little vineyard existed as late as the reign of George III outside Windsor Castle and to the east of Henry VIII's gateway. We also find mention of vineyards at Abingdon, Bisham, Burghfield, and Wallingford.

The number of men engaged in agriculture in Berkshire was 14,918 at the time of the last census.

11. INDUSTRIES AND MANUFACTURES.

As we have said, Berkshire is essentially an agricultural county, and the cloth-making which in the days of Ashmole was so great a trade that almost the whole nation was supplied from our county, has become practically obsolete. There are however at the present day several industries which give employment to a large number of workers in the county. 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. One of the oldest of existing newspapers is the Reading Mercury, started in that town in 1723.

Brewing has been carried on from the days of the monks, and no doubt plenty of good ale was brewed in the Abbeys of Abingdon and Reading. There is a record of malting mills in Wallingford Castle in 1300. At the present time there are large breweries at Reading, Windsor, and other places. Tanning is another very old industry which is still carried on with activity. The bark of the oak was formerly used to a large extent in tanning, and there has always been an abundance of oak trees in the county. Oak bark is still used to some extent. Shoe-making used to be an important cottage industry, but the introduction of machinery has carried the work to large factories elsewhere.

Newbury was at one time a great place for barge building, and boats of many kinds are now built at various places on the Thames and Kennet, indeed boat building counts amongst the more important of our active industries.

We have already mentioned cloth-making as one of the great industries of the county in former times. The chief centres were Reading, Abingdon, and Newbury. A fulling mill at Newbury is mentioned in 1205. The interesting Cloth Hall at that place, now a museum, was built by the Guild of Clothworkers of Newbury, which was incorporated in 1601, and the beautiful old house of Shaw was built by a Newbury clothier named Thomas Dolman in 1581. The most famous of the Berkshire clothiers was John Winchcombe or Smalwoode, known as Jack of Newbury (died 1520). During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the clothing trade declined. This was partly due to the activity of the northern clothiers and to the introduction of machinery with the resulting factory system. Still as late as 1816 there were works in Katesgrove Lane, Reading, where sail-cloth for the navy was manufactured in large quantity.

The silk industry too, once of some importance, has left the district. At the end of the sixteenth century silk-stocking making was quite an important industry at Wokingham, and many mulberry trees were planted in and near the town. Silk manufactures were also active at Reading, Newbury, Kintbury, Twyford, and other places.

Seed-growing is an important industry at Reading and employs a large number of people.

Iron and brass foundries of some importance are established at Reading and many other places, and there are large engineering works at Wantage.

There was a good bell-foundry at Wokingham in the last quarter of the fourteenth century (temp. Richard II), and several bells made there still exist. About 1495 the business was transferred to Reading, and bell-founding was carried on at that place until the beginning of the eighteenth century.

Lastly, the open country near Lambourn has long been used for training race-horses, and there are very large stables in this part of the country. The "gallops" now extend from Compton, Ilsley, and Wantage to Lambourn.

12. MINERALS. BUILDING MATERIALS.

There is very little in the way of minerals in the rock or soil of the county. Bands of ironstone are found in the Lower Greensand formation, and it appears to have been worked near Faringdon. A group of small hollows to the east of Little Coxwell are known as Cole's Pits and were probably dug to get the iron ore.

Two chalybeate springs at Sunninghill were at one time quite well known.

Whiting or whitening has for a long time been manufactured at Kintbury from soft chalk which is dug there. A layer in the Reading Beds at Reading used to be dug as fuller's earth for the clothiers of that town.

Before the Norman conquest most of the buildings in the county were of wood, and of course wood has been very largely used in buildings at all times. Splendid examples of hewn timber-work may be seen in many of our churches and other buildings. There is for example some very fine old timber in the Canon's Cloisters at Windsor Castle.

Brick was a building material in the time of the Romans and its use was most probably never wholly discontinued. In Tudor times many of the buildings were of brick and timber, and picturesque brick and timber structures of various dates will be found in all parts of our county. The gallery at Christ's Hospital, Abingdon, shown on the next page, is a good example.

All the clay formations in Berkshire have been used for brick and tile making. The works at Katesgrove and other places on the banks of the Kennet at Reading are very old and certainly go back to the sixteenth century. In 1901 there were 1029 men and 35 women engaged in brick, cement, pottery, and like works in Berkshire.

The limestone rocks of the Corallian formation have been much quarried in the district between Faringdon and the river Thames near Oxford, and the stone has been used in buildings of all ages.

Chalk has also been extensively quarried for building purposes. There is a great deal of chalk in the walls of the Dean's Cloisters and also in other parts of Windsor Castle. Chalk frame-work may be seen in many church windows, at Old Windsor and Bray for instance. At Waltham St Lawrence there is a very curious example, for some flints are actually left in the chalk mullions of the east window of the north chantry. It may be of interest to mention that in the valley of the Seine in northern France chalk has been extensively used as a building stone--in some of the best buildings at Rouen for example.

Flints from the chalk are much used as building-material in Berkshire; they are employed fixed in concrete to form the core of walls, as at Reading Abbey, and as facing to walls with stone corners and window-frames. Shottesbrooke Church is faced with beautifully dressed little flints. In other churches the flints are not squared but in the rough state. At St Mary's Church, Reading, there is building of a chess-board pattern, one set of squares being stone and the others formed of small dressed flints. Another example of this chequer-work is shown in the view of the church at White Waltham here given.

The hard sandstone which has been derived from the Eocene strata and is termed "sarsen" (see p. 40) is an important Berkshire building stone. There is a great deal of it in the walls all over Windsor Castle, several of the towers and walls being faced with sarsen.

In some of the Berkshire gravel beds there is a hard irony conglomerate, and this has been used as a building material. There is a good deal in the tower of St Giles Church, Reading, and in the parish church at Wokingham.

There are many building-materials used in the county which have been brought from other districts, but this chapter only deals with things found in Berkshire itself.

Chalk was formerly used to a large extent for chalking the soil, but the practice has now almost fallen into disuse, and in consequence one sees abandoned chalk pits all over the chalk district. The reasons for giving up chalking are the increase in the cost of labour and the decrease in the value of corn crops, together with the much larger use of artificial manures. The fertility of many farms now is nevertheless due to the liming and chalking of old days, and it is to be regretted that the practice has been abandoned to so great an extent.

13. THE HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE.

It has already been mentioned that Berkshire probably came into existence as a county in the time of King Egbert, who brought the long struggle between the kingdoms of the Heptarchy to a close and established the ascendancy of Wessex over much of the south of England. It is probable that there was still a population living on the chalk downs and in occupation of the old forts, and the fertile Vale of White Horse was gradually coming under cultivation. In any case there was a royal residence at Wantage, where Alfred the Great was born in 849, and a religious foundation at Abingdon. There were also at least two towns, Reading and Wallingford.

Already in the previous century the English coast had been harried by the Viking pirates, but there is no record of their having penetrated to our district. In 851 they did indeed make their way up the Thames into Surrey, but were defeated by Ethelwulf, the son of Egbert, and his son Ethelbald at Ockley. They next approached Berkshire from the south coast, and in 860 attacked and plundered Winchester, but were defeated by the united forces of Berkshire and Hampshire. Ivor the Dane is said to have reached Reading in 868, and Reading was captured and occupied by the Danes in 871.

Ethelred was at this time king and together with his brother Alfred fought the Danes near Reading, but was not successful and retreated westwards. The Danes followed and the great battle of Assandun, in which the Danes were put to flight, was fought on the chalk downs at some place to the west of Aldworth in 871. There is much doubt as to the exact site of the battle. At one time it was supposed that the White Horse was cut on the hill-side as a memorial of the victory, but it is now known that this was not so, for the horse is much older than the date of the battle. The Danes retreated to Reading, and only 14 days afterwards they got the better of the Saxons in a fight at Basing in Hampshire, and were again victorious two months later at Merton. A truce, however, followed and the Danes retired to London. All this was in the year 871, and during the same year King Ethelred died and Alfred the Great became king. How King Alfred, who ruled until 901, eventually defeated the Danes and came to terms with them is well known, and Berkshire for a time enjoyed peace.

About this time there was a royal residence at Faringdon, for it is recorded that Edward the Elder died there in 925. His son Athelstan had a mint at Wallingford, and three coins struck by him at that place are in the collection at the British Museum. The monastery at Abingdon had been destroyed by the Danes, and St Ethelwold was told by King Edred to re-establish it, but the work was not accomplished until the reign of Edgar. Ethelred the Unready had a mint at Reading.

In 1006 the Danes again appeared in Berkshire and burnt Reading. They then advanced up the Thames to Wallingford and burnt that town. They did not, however, remain in the county, but carried their booty to the sea by way of Winchester. Both Reading and Wallingford were soon rebuilt. Edward the Confessor struck coins at both these towns, and there are specimens in the British Museum. The Confessor had a residence at Old Windsor, and the great Earl Godwin is said to have died there in a manner attributed to the judgment of God. The King gave Windsor to the Abbey of Westminster, but William the Conqueror exchanged it for some land in Essex, and built a castle on the chalk hill near the Thames where the present Windsor Castle stands. Ever since the time of the Conqueror Windsor has been a favourite residence of our Sovereigns.

In 1121 Reading Abbey was founded by King Henry I and the first Abbot was appointed in 1123. Henry added to the buildings at Windsor, and his marriage to his second wife Adelais, daughter of Godfrey Count of Louvain, took place there in 1121. There was at this time a castle at Wallingford, for it is recorded that Waleran, Earl of Mellent, was imprisoned there in 1126.

Henry I died in 1135 and was buried in Reading Abbey. On his death the peace of the county was disturbed by civil war, for the crown was claimed by Henry's nephew, Stephen of Blois, though he had sworn to support the cause of Henry's daughter Maud or Matilda. Matilda had been married twice, and as her first husband was Henry V, the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, she is known as the Empress Matilda. War between Stephen and Matilda began in 1139 and spread over most of England. Windsor and Reading were held for Stephen, whilst Brian of Wallingford, a great magnate in Berkshire, took the side of Matilda. Wallingford Castle was besieged by Stephen in 1139 and again in 1145, but without success. A castle at Faringdon built by Robert Earl of Gloucester was taken and destroyed by Stephen. In 1145 Matilda gave up the contest and retired to France, but in 1152 her son Henry renewed the war and Stephen again besieged Wallingford and again unsuccessfully. He also besieged Newbury Castle, which was held by John Marshal of Hampstead Marshall. Eventually in 1153 peace was made at Wallingford--Stephen to be king for life and to be succeeded by Henry, son of Matilda. Stephen died in the next year, 1154, and Henry was crowned as King Henry II. He possessed himself of Wallingford Castle and held a Council there in 1155. Henry added to the buildings at Windsor Castle, and the lower part of the south side of the Upper Ward dates from his time.

In 1163 a duel or wager of battle was fought between Robert de Montfort and Henry of Essex on an island in the Thames below Caversham Bridge. Essex was accused of treachery or cowardice, having thrown away the standard in a battle at Coleshill. He was defeated in the duel and was allowed to join the community of Reading Abbey.

On April 19th, 1164, the ceremony of hallowing the Abbey Church at Reading was performed by Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, in the presence of the King. In 1175 Henry held a royal festival at Reading, and in 1185 we hear of a state ceremony at this town, when Henry received Heraclius, the Patriarch of Jerusalem. Henry died in 1189 and was succeeded by his son Richard I. Soon after his accession Richard left England on a crusade, having appointed the Bishops of Ely and Durham guardians of the kingdom during his absence. To his brother John he gave the government of some English districts and places, including the Honour of Wallingford. After Richard's departure a quarrel arose between the Bishop of Ely, whose name was Longchamp, and Geoffrey Archbishop of York, and Longchamp caused Geoffrey to be arrested. Prince John took the part of Geoffrey and called a Council at Reading to demand justification from Longchamp, who was summoned to meet the prince at Loddon Bridge, presumably the bridge on the Reading and Wokingham road. Longchamp did not appear, and all the participators in the arrest of the Archbishop were excommunicated in Reading church. Longchamp eventually retired to the continent, and John obtained possession of Windsor Castle, but gave it up to Queen Eleanor until Richard should come back--which he did in 1194. On Richard's death, in 1199, his brother John became King. In 1204 he obtained possession of Beckett near Shrivenham, once the property of the Earls of Evreux, and he probably lived there at times, for a mandate to the Sheriff of Oxfordshire is dated from Beckett. In 1213 John held an important ecclesiastical Council at Reading Abbey. He died in 1216 and was succeeded by his son Henry, who was in his tenth year. William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, son of John Marshal already mentioned, was appointed Regent of the kingdom, and he held the office until his death in 1219.

In the Dean's Cloisters at Windsor may be still seen the crowned head of Henry painted during his life by William the monk of Westminster. Henry added largely to Windsor Castle, and the outer walls and towers of the Lower Ward are to a great extent his work. Disputes arose between Henry and his barons, and Berkshire was again the scene of civil war. In 1261 Parliament was summoned to meet at Windsor, and the castle was fortified by Prince Edward. It was taken in 1263 by Simon de Montfort, and the prince was captured. In time, however, he escaped and got the better of the barons.

In 1295 Berkshire sent two knights of the shire to Parliament, and Reading and Wallingford also sent representatives. In 1307 the Templars were expelled from their Preceptories at Bisham and Templeton. In the time of Edward II we hear complaints of robbers in Windsor Forest.

Edward III was born at Windsor in 1312, and his tenure of power began at a Court held at Wallingford in 1326, though his father was not deposed until the next year. King Edward wished to hold a Round Table in imitation of King Arthur, and he invited a number of knights both English and foreign to assemble at Windsor Castle in 1344. No doubt a splendid tournament took place and others followed in subsequent years. In 1347 or 1348 a garter with the motto Hony soit qui mal y pense was worn as a device at jousts at Windsor, and the institution of the Order of the Garter in all probability took place at Windsor in 1348, though some authorities give the date as 1349. At Christmas, 1346, the King was at Reading and a great jousting was held in his honour, and in 1359 John of Gaunt, afterwards Duke of Lancaster, was married at Reading, and there was a great pageant and a tournament in which the King and his sons took part.

During the reign of Edward III, William of Wykeham built, or re-built, the Round Tower and much of the castle at Windsor. The sword of the King is still preserved there.

In 1327 Abingdon had a little fight of its own. Some of the townspeople, assisted by the Mayor of Oxford and it is said by some scholars, attacked the Abbey and drove out the monks, part of the buildings being burnt and the muniments destroyed. In the end twelve of the attacking party were hanged and the monks restored.