Transcriber's Notes Text appearing in illustrations has been replicated along with the illustration caption. Italics are surrounded with _ _ and bold text with = =. Some presumed printer's errors have been corrected. These are listed below with the original text (top) and the replacement text (bottom): p. 57 Westminster Abbey, As more Westminster Abbey. As more p. 101 magis-strates [end-of-line hyphen] magistrates p. 141 plainly At the end plainly. At the end OUR ENGLISH TOWNS AND VILLAGES OUR ENGLISH TOWNS AND VILLAGES BY H. R. WILTON HALL Library Curator, Hertfordshire County Museum; Sub-Librarian St. Alban's Cathedral, &c. Author of "Hertfordshire: a Reading-Book of the County", &c. I do love these ancient ruins,-- We never tread upon them but we set Our foot upon some reverend history. LONDON BLACKIE & SON, LIMITED, 50 OLD BAILEY, E.C. GLASGOW AND DUBLIN 1906 PREFACE Many things connected with the history of our towns and villages have to be passed over in an ordinary school history reader. In the following pages an attempt is made to call attention in simple language, very broadly and generally, to connecting-links with the past in our towns and villages. There are many relics and customs yet remaining in many places, which, with a little care and attention to local circumstances, may be made helpful in teaching history, so that it shall be something more than a collection of names, dates, battles, and lists of eminent persons. The book is intended as a reader, not as a text-book to be worked up for examination purposes. Its aim is rather to arouse interest in the "why and the wherefore" of things which can be seen by an intelligent and observant boy or girl in the place in which he or she lives: to do for history, and the subjects connected with it, what "nature-lessons" are intended to do in their "sphere of influence". Attention is being directed to localities, their special history, physical, political, industrial, and commercial, as it has never been before in our Educational history; and all that a special locality can contribute in the way of illustration and exemplification is worth knowing, understanding, and utilising. It is hoped that this book may be of some service in quickening intelligence in looking out for "things to see". The observation which is directed to noting the numbers on the motor cars, the names of locomotives, and the collection of postage-stamps and picture post-cards, can also be usefully turned, say, to noting the styles of architecture which really mark broadly great periods of our national life and development; and may help us, perhaps more than anything else, to arrange our ideas of the days of old in a proper order and sequence. An old building may be an excellent date-book.