“A double dissolution there appears, He into dust dissolves; she into tears.” Surely a mind capable of such ingenious imagery on such a subject cannot have been wholly downcast. The old almshouses by the church were founded, as appears on a tablet over the entrance, by one William Barker: This Hospitall for the Maintenance of eight poor persons, Each at 6_d._ pr diem for euer, was Erected and Founded in ye year 1664 At the Sole Charge of WILLIAM BARKER of Hurst, in the County of Wilts, Esq. Who dyed ye 25th of March, 1685 And lies buried in the South Chancell of this Parish. Note you that, gentle reader, “the county of Wilts,” we being in the midst of Berkshire? A considerable tract of surrounding country is in fact (or was until comparatively recent years) a detached portion of Wiltshire, and was invariably shown so on old maps. Examples of such isolated portions of counties, and even of detached fragments of parishes, are by no means rare: Worcestershire in England and Cromartyshire in Scotland, forming the most notable examples; but the reasons for these things are obscure, and all attempts at explaining them amount to little more than the unsatisfying conclusion that they are thus because—well, because they are, you know! That is the net result of repeated discussions upon the subject in _Notes and Queries_, in which publication of wholly honorary and unpaid contributions the majority of noters, querists, and writers of replies have during the space of some sixty years past been engaged in chasing their own tails, like so many puppies. The process is amusing enough, but as you end where you began, the net result is no great catch. Apart from legends and traditions, it would seem that the explanation of the Berkshire districts of Hurst, Twyford, Ruscombe, Whistley Green, and a portion of Wokingham having been accounted in Wiltshire, may be found in the fact, already remarked, that Sonning was a manor of the Bishops of Salisbury. The question appears to have been largely an ecclesiastical affair. The anomaly of a portion of Wiltshire being islanded in Berkshire was, however, ended by Acts of Parliament during the reigns of William the Fourth and Queen Victoria, by which the area concerned was annexed to Berkshire. Returning from Hurst to Twyford, expeditions to Ruscombe, St. Lawrence Waltham, and Shottesbrooke will amply repay the explorer in these wilds—for wilds they are in the matter of perplexing roads. They are good roads, in so far that they are level, but they would seem to have come into existence on no plan; or, if plan there ever were, a malicious plan, intended to utterly confound and mislead the stranger. But this is no unpleasant district in which to wander awhile. [Illustration: ST. LAWRENCE WALTHAM.]