Böcker av C. R. Elrington

This volume is a supplement to the book published in 1970, which described the origins and progress of the Victoria County History and included lists of contents of the 150 volumes which had previously been published, with indexes of the articles and authors included in those lists.

This volume is devoted to an account of Roman Cambridgeshire. It completes the `general' articles on the county for the Victoria History, while the topography, on which four volumes have already been published, remains to be completed in three or four further volumes. Although in Roman times the county in no way formed a unit, and may indeed have been divided between the provinces of Britannia Superior and Inferior along the line of the Fen Causeway, andalthough only a relatively small part of the area looked towards the Roman settlement of Cambridge as its centre while the rest looked towards urban centres tying beyond the later county boundary, it has been possible to piece together the story of Roman Cambridgeshire. To a considerable extent it has been possible because of the pioneering groundwork done by the late Sir Cyril Fox on the Cambridge region, extending beyond the county but including all itssouthern part, and more recently by the Fenland Research Committee, taking in the Isle of Ely along with the rest of the Fens. The author of the present volume, Mr. David Browne, has devoted a long time to the study of Roman Cambridgeshire and has built on the work of his predecessors. Following a discussion of the landscape, which has changed greatly since the 1st century A.D., and of the roads, he unravels the story of settlement in the Roman period, in which the town of Cambridge, the Duroli-ponte of the Antonine Itinerary, provides contrasts with the villages of the Fens and the villas of the southern uplands. An analysis of the recorded items of material culture, together with shorter sections on agricul-ture, currency, religion, and burial, is linked with the settlement history to provide a comprehensive survey which may be used also as a selective gazetteer.

The volume describes the history of Tewkesbury and 22 other parishes lying mainly between the Severn and Bredon and Cleeve Hills. Tewkesbury itself was once an important centre for communications, manufacture, trade, and administration; its great abbey church remains, and the many timber-framed houses recall its past prosperity. Bishop's Cleeve had a monastery in the 8th century and later became a demesne manor of the Bishop of Worcester. There was an early minster church at Beckford, and at Deerhurst a Saxon monastery with a remarkable church that is still in use. At Forthampton part of the Abbot of Tewkesbury's manor-house survives. There were also substantial lay estates, not only the great manor of Tewkesbury, long owned by the Earls of Gloucester, but also those of lesser baronial families, like the Beauchamps, Pauncefoots, and Cardiffs. The land, once densely wooded, has mostly long been agricultural,though in Corse and Tirley parts of the former chase were not inclosed until 1797, and there were large sheep-pastures in the hills. Prestbury was becoming residential by the late 18th century and later on engineering works stimulated the growth of other places in the area.

This volume contains the histories of 25 parishes in west Cambridgeshire and eight articles on sport. The parishes form the hundreds of Longstowe and Wetherley. On the west they lie along the Old North Road, which has affected thechanging shape and fortunes of some of the villages, while on the east the closeness of Cambridge has been influential through the ownership of land and livings by the colleges and, in modern times, through the spread of satellite housing. The soil is mostly a heavy clay that was not easily drained, and the existence in Wetherley hundred of five deserted village sites may attest the difficulties of cultivation. One site, however, was that of Wimpole, moved to make apark around what became the county's finest country house, once the seat of the Chicheleys and later of Edward Harley, earl of Oxford, and of the earls of Hardwicke. A few other places stand out from their neighbours,Bourn with its Norman castle-site, Caxton as a small market town and coaching centre which prospered until the decline of the Old North Road, and Rupert Brooke's Grantchester. The parishes tend to be small, with nucleated settlements. Much land remained in open fields until the eighth century, and several villages retain extensive greens. During periods of agricultural depression the inhabitants suffered acute poverty; coprolite-digging between 1855 and 1885 brought some prosperity. Modern agriculture includes large-scale arable farming, fruit-growing, and market-gardening. Light industry, cement-works, and radio-telescopes vary the rural scene. Of the sports whose history is toldin the volume, racing takes pride of place since Cambridgeshire includes Newmarket Heath. The presence of the university underlay the development of rowing, football, and cricket, while the county's geographical characteristics have given peculiar importance to wildfowling and skating.