Excerpt from Bygone Berkshire Volume, and I trust that their labours will meet with the approbation of all who reverence antiquity and love the traditions of the Royal. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Originally published in 1896. Bygone Berkshire provides some glimpses of bygone times and episodes, sketches of the manners and customs of old Berkshire folk, and a few biographical notices of the Royal County of Berkshire's heroes and learned men. Berkshire, which has also been known as the Royal County of Berkshire since at least the 19th century because of the presence of Windsor Castle, has many charms for the Antiquary and the History, and the story of its castles and abbeys shows how many great events in the history of England have been enacted on Berkshire soil, and Windsor, the home of our sovereigns, sheds additional glory on the annals of our ancient county. ____________________ CONTENTS OF BYGONE BERKSHIRE Preface Historic Berkshire Windsor Castle Wallingford Castle Cumnor Place and Amy Robsart Alfred the Great The Guilds of Berkshire The Scouring of the White Horse The Last of the Abbots Siege of Reading Reading Abbey The First Battle of Newbury, 1643. The Second Battle of Newbury, 1644. Binfield and Easthampstead, 1700-1716, and the Early Years of Alexander Pope. Berkshire Words and Phrases. Bull-Baiting in Berkshire.

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