The Octocentenary of Reading Abbey. By Jamieson B. Hurry. (Elliot
Stock. 10s. 6d. net.)—Reading is celebrating the eighth centenary of the foundation of the Abbey by Henry L on June 18th, 1121. Dr. Hurry has written a short popular history of the historic house, the modest ruins of which may still be seen from the train, to the east of the junction. It is illustrated with reproductions of pseudo-historical pictures and with an ingenious reconstruction by Mr. W. M. Keesey of the Abbey as it was in its prime. Henry L's daughter, the Empress Maud, brought him from Germany the supposed hand of St. James the Great, and the King bestowed this relic upon Reading Abbey, where it was enshrined up to the Reformation. It was a monk of Reading who noted down in a thirteenth-century calendar the earliest known of English songs, " Sumer is icumen in." The last Abbot, Hugh Faringdon, was hanged in front of his Abbey in 1539 by order of Thomas Cromwell. Dr. Hurry says that the Abbey buildings were used by Charles I. and the Judges in 1825, when there was plague in London, and that the ruin of the Abbey came about in the siege of Reading in 1643, when the Royalist garrison fortified the buildings and were heavily bombarded by Essex for ten days until they surrendered.
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