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This volume completes Chafford hundred and covers Harlow hundred. The part of Chafford hundred, now in Brentwood District and Thur-rock borough, includes Aveley, Stifford, Grays Thurrock and West Thurrock beside the Thames and, further north, Childerditch, Brentwood, and South Weald. Grays Thurrock, formerly a small port with a brickworks and a brewery, is now the main centre of the borough. The coastal marshes west of Grays were used mainly as sheep pastures until the 18th century, when large-scale chalk quarrying and lime burning began. The West Thurrock cement industry, which grew up in the 19th century, became one of the largest in Europe. It has since declined and the area isnow used mainly for the storage of oil and petroleum and the manufacture of soap, detergents, and marga-rine. Brentwood, now a large dormitory suburb of London, owed its early growth to its position on the main London-Colchester road, and per-haps also to the cult of St. Thomas the Martyr. The mansions of Belhus, at Aveley, and Weald Hall, South Weald, both dating from the 16th century, were demolished after the Second World War. South Weald park remains as a country park, and so does Thorndon park, including part of Childerditch, but some land in Belhus park was used after 1950 for a housing estate of the London county council. At Purfleet, in West Thurrock, a smaller housing estate occupies the site of powder magazines built by the government in the 1760s. Harlow hundred contained 11 parishes in west Essex, including the ancient market towns of Hatfield Broad Oak and Harlow. Hatfield, with its Benedictine priory, was one of the principal places in Essex in the Middle Ages, but it de-clined after the 16th century, and the hundred remained largely rural until after the Second World War, when five of its parishes became the new townof Harlow, built to rehouse 80,000 Londoners. Hatfield forest, belonging to the National Trust, comprises over 400 ha. There have been extensive maltings at Sheering and Harlow, breweries at Harlow and Hatfield Heath, and a silkmill at Little Hallingbury. Among great houses the 16th-century Hallingbury Place has disappeared, but Barrington Hall and Down Hall, both rebuilt in the mid 19th century, survive. At Netherhall, Roydon, are the remains of a 15th-century gatehouse.

The volume relates the histories of the borough of Devizes and of the 22 parishes in Swanborough hundred. It covers an area in the centre of Wiltshire, including the western end of the Vale of Pewsey, and ascending the escarpmentof the Marl-borough Downs to the north and that of Salisbury Plain to the south. Eastwards Swanborough extends to the Cheverells and the heavy clay-lands of west Wiltshire. Within it stand Milk Hill and Tan Hill, the two highest points in the county, and along the ridge of the Marlborough Downs is a series of important prehistoric settlement sites. Through the hundred run the ancient track known as the Ridge Way, a small stretch of Wansdyke, the Kennet andAvon Canal, and one of the main railway lines to the west of England. Once noted for its sheep-and-corn husbandry, the region has more recently seen a great ex-pansion of dairy-farming, particularly in the parishes of the Vale. Horticulture has also flourished on the greensand soils in the east and west. In 1975 the area remains almost entirely rural, although it in-cludes R.A.F. Upavon and the land on Salisbury Plain is within the army's con-trol. Most of the settlements are small, none now ranking as more than a large village, although Upavon had a market in the Middle Ages and Market Lavington had one until the 19th century. Almost all of the few industries have agricultural orhorticultural connexions. Great Cheverell was once renowned for its sheep-bell makers. Jam is still made at Easterton. Devizes has a history of unusual interest for a town of its size. Its castle, scene of many stirring events inearly times, was described in the 12th century as one of the most splendid in Europe. Its market, still held weekly in the 20th century, can be traced back at least to the early 13th. The central position of Devizes within Wiltshire gave it a claim to become the county town and has caused it to develop some of the characteristics of such a town.

This volume completes Becontree hundred by providing histories of East Ham, West Ham, Little Ilford, Leyton, Walthamstow, Wanstead, and Woodford. The region, rural until the 19th century, is now part of Greater London. Though mainly residen-tial it includes, at Silvertown, Canning Town, and Stratford, one of the largest manufacturing centres in southern England, as well as the Royal Docks. Until 1965 the region remained outside London for admin-istrative purposes. This strongly influenced urban development, especially in East Ham and West Ham, which, as county boroughs, had sole responsibility for local government services and planning in a period of remark-able growth. West Ham, in 1898, was one of the first English towns to come under socialist control. Throughout the region the expanding population demanded the pro-vision of many new schools and churches, each of which is briefly treated in the vol-ume.In dealing with churches an attempt is made to assess the relative strength of the various denominations. Urbanization has swept away most of the visible remains of earlier history. Until the 19th century the region was fashionable with the gentry, and this is reflected in the size of some of the older parish churches, notably at Walthamstow and West Ham. At Little Ilford, by contrast, is one of the smallest churches in Essex. Wanstead House, the palladian mansion designed by Colen Campbell, was demolished in 1823, though much of its park has survived. The northern part of the region, bordering on Epping Forest, retains some attractive wood-land, especially at Walthamstow, Wanstead, and Woodford, where several 18th-century houses also survive. Notable modern build-ings include Wanstead hospital, built as an orphanage (1861), Sir Joseph Bazalgette's metropolitan sewage pumping station at Stratford (1868),and the town halls at East Ham (1903) and Walthamstow (1941). During the Second World War the south part of the region was heavily bombed, and since 1945 there has been large-scale redevelopment, especially at Canning Town, wherethe sky-line is increasingly dominated by tower blocks of council flats.

This volume is concerned mainly with the industrial history of Staffordshire. It not only includes a full treatment of pottery and other major industries such as mining, engineering and the various metal trades, but also deals with the textiles of Leek, the boots and shoes of Stafford, the sadd-lery of Walsall, and the beer of Burton. Other industries include quarrying, glass-making, saltworking and brickmaking. An important allied topic is the developmentof communications, and chapters are de-voted to the history of roads, canals and railways. The volume also includes an account of the forests of Staffordshire, notably Cannock, Kinver and Needwood. Finally there are chapters on the major sports of the county-foxhunting, horse-racing, cricket, and football.

The ecclesiastical history of Staffordshire provides the content of Volume III. The opening chapter on the Medieval Church traces the early history of Christianity in the area and recounts the struggle for predominance between Lichfield and Coventry. There are separate chapters on the Church of England since the Reformation, Roman Catholicisim, and Protestant Nonconformity; among much else, the last describes the origins in the Potteries of Primitive Methodism. There are also individual accounts of the county 's 40 religious -houses, including Burton Abbey, the College of St. Peter, Wolverhampton, the alien priory of Tutbury, and, most important, Lichfeld cathedral, a house of secular canons where St. Chad was buried.

The volume covers a large area in the Vale of York, lying to the south and east of the city. It is concerned with the history of the twelve parishes in Ouse and Derwent wapentake and of eight parishes in the western half of the Wilton Beacon division of Harthill wapentake. Ouse and Derwent wapentake is largely bounded by those two rivers, and the Wilton Beacon division lies immediately east of the river Derwent. The land is low-lying and relatively flat. Its dominant physical features are the two large rivers and two ridges of glacial moraine which traverse the vale. The mor-aines provided early routes across the marshy land and the sites for several villages. Other settlements stand by the Ouse and the Derwent at places where meanders take the rivers close to the firm valley sides. The terrain was once well wooded, and the way in which the wood-land was cleared resulted in a landscape characterized by small open fields and large tracts of early inclosures and common grazing. Particularly in the north-east part of the area the number of large country houses reflects the proximity of York and the interest of its citizens in landed estates; the houses include Escrick Hall, Moreby Hall, and Heslington Hall, in recent years the centre of the University of York. There has been some suburban development, notably in Gate Fulford. Most of the villages consist of brick houses built in the 18th century and later. The most considerable ecclesiastical building is the church of Hemingbrough, made collegiate in 1427 by the prior of Durham. Of many bridges mentioned in the volume that at Stamford Bridge is notable for its part in the battle in which King Harold defeated the Danes before marching to his death at Hastings.

This contains histories of ten ancient parishes in north-west Middlesex. Wealthy Lon-doners began to buy property here during the Middle Ages and later settled in fine houses, exemplified by the Jacobean mansion of Swake-leys. Thearea in return supplied the capital with corn, livestock, and, increasingly, with hay and garden produce. In Uxbridge it possessed a medieval market town, whose prosperity grew with the coach trade, and in Harrow, from the 18th century, it boasted a fashionable school. Until the 19th century, however, the parishes were mainly rural and even backward, since agriculture was hampered by the heavy London Clay. The countryside receded only gradually, with thecutting of canals and the digging of brickearth, followed by the penetration of rail-ways and the spread of housing around the railway stations. In 1920 the hay-fields of Perivale, a parish centred around five farms, still contrasted with the factories of Southall, al-though the sale of private estates for development was soon to leave only some carefully preserved open spaces. Contrasts persist today: between the slopes along the Hertfordshire border, with their trees and large residences, and the housing estates which stretch away to the south; between the high streets of Harrow-on-the-Hill and Pinner, scarcely changed in the 20th century, and the M 1 and M 4 motorways; between the village greens at the heart of Norwood and Northolt and the shopping centre under con-struction at Uxbridge; between churches, alms-houses, moats, and barns on one hand, and on the other the stadium and Empire Pool and Arena atWembley, and London Airport, which has obliterated the hamlet of Heathrow and covered most of the parish of Harmondsworth. The volume contains 19 pages of illustrations, two street-plans, and nine maps.

John Lydford was a fourteenth-century canon lawyer and cleric who acted as an advocate in the church court at Canterbury and held various official positions in the English church. He left a book of notes and documents relating tocanon law, which are edited here with an introduction. Its contents include legal formulas for use in court cases, notes about points of law, and records of particular cases drawn from the church courts of Oxford, Hereford, Winchester and Exeter. John Lydford's book therefore offers an unusual insight into the workings of the medieval English church and its courts.

Volume IX contains histories of Swindon, Wootton Bassett, and nine rural parishes. Special attention has been given to the development of New Swindon after the coming of the G.W.R. works in 1845, and to the effects of that development upon the small and ancient market town of Old Swindon. Space is also devoted to Swindon's quarrying industry; which flourished for 200 years before the arrival of the G.W.R. works, and to the new industries which were attracted to the town at about the time the railway works began to decline in the 20th century. The rural parishes lie chiefly to the south and west of Swindon, and several have been influenced in recent years by the growth of their large industrial neighbour. Some are also shortly to be disrupted by the construction of the M4 motorway through their land. Much of that land lies in the rich dairy-farming region of the county, but in the south it climbs the chalk escarpment of the Marlborough Downs, where sheep were grazed in the Middle Ages. A study of Wootton Bassett has led to the suggestion that it was deliberately laid out as a small market town in the 13th century. The impact made upon Lyneham by the R.A.F. station there is considered in the history of that parish. Among the illustrations is one showing what the large and elegant house at Lydiard Tregoze looked like before rebuilding in the classical style inthe 18th century. The volume contains a street plan and ten maps.

THIS volume contains a translation of the Dorset section of Domesday Book with a commentary and index. The Exchequer and Exeter texts of the Survey are printed side by side for purposes of comparison. The text of the Dorset section of the Geld Rolls with translation and commentary is appended.

This volume completes the 'general' history of the county which was begun in 1911 in Middlesex II. It contains illustrated articles on the physique and pre-history of Middlesex, from Palaeolithic to Pagan Saxon times, on its religious houses and ecclesiastical organization, and on education within the county. It also includes a translation of the Middlesex section of Domesday Book with map, commentary, and index. The sequence of articles on education includes histories of working-class and private education, accounts of endowed schools, and a history of the University of London and its constituent colleges and schools.

The themes of Volume III are the government and parliamentary representation of Shropshire from their beginnings up to 1974. The long perspective allows the vicissi-tudes of successive institutions of county government to be examined thoroughly. For example, the rise of the justices of the peace is fully chronicled from their in-conspicuous origins under Edward I to the amplitude of their powers and duties in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. Shropshire's medieval government had a number of peculiarities, caused by the county's fron-tier position opposite the hostile Welsh. Accordingly its 'palatine' earldom, its serjeants of the peace, its loss of territory to marcher lordships, and its subjection to the Council in the Marches of Wales receive special attention. From Elizabeth I's reign, as the magistrates' concerns increased, the story comes to include much of the social history of the times. From 1889, when the county council was formed, that history has been one of unprecedented penetration by local government into formerly untouched areas of local and personal affairs. The institutions of Shropshire's govern-ment provided opportunities for influence and advancement; the volume thus em-bodies a history of the fortunes of Shrop-shire's leading men and families. Most prominent in the Middle Ages were the earls of Shrewsbury, Arundel, and March. Since then the families of Corbet, Newport, Herbert, Clive, and Bridgeman have been among the weightiest. Linked with their fortunes were those of smaller landowners and local officials. In the 18th century, with the appointments of itsfirst permanent county treasurer and of its first county surveyor, Thomas Telford, Shropshire took a large step towards the formation of a modern county bureaucracy. Nowhere has the play of ambition and manouvre been more openlyexercised than in elections to Parliament. The volume explores the intricacies of Shrop-shire electioneering from Edward I's reign to the general election of October 1974, and illustrates the manner in which conflicting electoralinterests bit deep into the sub-stance of Shropshire society.

An exceptional reference work to pilgrim and secular badges of the middle ages.

This is the first major catalogue in English devoted to medieval badges. These fascinating objects provide us with a guide to the popularity of different cults and pilgrim centres, supplying evidence of the sometimes arduous journeys not only to famous and far-off sanctuaries like Compostela, but to native shrines such as that of St Thomas Becket at Canterbury, or the tombs of local, unofficial saints. Often mass-produced and sold in tens of thousands, pilgrim souvenirs offer pointers to fashion in contemporary precious jewellery. The secular badges include a wealth of non-religious imagery, playful and amatory, satirical, celebratory and heraldic. Illustrating nearly 800 items ofpopular medieval jewellery, the catalogue contained within the book describes previously unpublished finds retrieved from datable archaeological London waterfront deposits, and provides the basis of a chronological framework for future excavations.

BRIAN SPENCER was the Senior Keeper at the Museum of London, with special responsibility for the Museum's collection of medieval everyday objects.

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.

THE Victoria History of the Counties of England has been in progress for 70 years and has recently seen the publication of its 150th volume. The General Introduction provides a conspectus of all that has been published up to and including 1970, with a bibliographical survey, lists of the contents of each volume, and indexes of the titles of articles and of authors. It opens with an account of the origin and progress of the Victoria History, from its confident beginning at the close of Queen Victoria's reign, through its quiescence between the two World Wars, to its renewed vigour and expansion under the wing of the University of London and with the support of Local Authorities.

The History of Parliament - The House of Commons 1558-1603 contains 2.668 biographical articles and 241 constituency articles. The biographies include many of the powerful political figures of Elizabeth's reign such as SirWilliam Cecil, Sir Robert Dudley, Sir Amias Paulet, Thomas Sackville and Sir Christopher Hatton, as well as the middling figures like Laurence Tomson and Richard Topcliffe, the 'parliament men' Thomas Norton and William Fleetwoodand the firebrand Peter Wentworth.

"All writers of Elizabethan history shall now refer to these biographies for the most reliable information about the leaders of the Elizabethan polity who served out their time in the Commons" declared the British Book News on the first publication of this three volume set.