The bridge of twenty arches is interesting, four being fine original work of about 1260: several rebuilt with Norman work from the Priory in 1530; three rebuilt in 1750, where drawbridges had been substituted during the siege; and three rebuilt in 1809, when the bridge was widened. Celebrated men belonging to the town were John of Wallingford, the Chronicler, and Richard of Wallingford, the mathematician, both Abbots of St. Albans; Sir Richard Knollys, Constable of the Castle,_created Viscount Wallingford by James I and Earl of Banbury by Charles I; and Sir William Blackstone, the legal commentator. Wallingford was made a royal borough by Edward the Confessor. Its mayoralty began in 1155, thirty-four years before that of London; and the question of which is the oldest of our boroughs is disputed between Wallingford and Winchester. HE Manor of Ufton belonged from about A.D. 1411 till it was sold in 1802 to a family of the name of Parkyns or Perkins, but the building now known as Ufton Court was not the original Manor-house. That stood on a moated site about a quarter of a mile distant, and nearer to the Parish Church. No trace of it now remains above ground; but, by the landlord's permission, excavations were made on the spot some years ago, and some foundations of a house were found; also of the gate-head of the bridge across the moat. The house we are now considering belonged originally to a separate manor, known as "Pole Manor." It had formed part of the property of the last Lord Lovell, of Minster Lovell, in Oxfordshire, whose estates were confiscated by Henry VII, in consequence of the part he took in the rebellion of the Pretender, Lambert Simnel. He had been a favourite of Richard III, and is remembered in history by the distich "The Cat, the Rat, and Lovell the Dog, Rule all England under the Hog;" the Cat and the Rat being Catesby and Ratcliffe, and the Hog Richard III himself, whose cognisance was a white boar. After changing hands once or twice, the Manor of Ufton Pole was purchased in 1567 by a Lady Mervyn, widow of Sir John Mervyn, of Fountell Gifford, in Wiltshire. She had been twice married, her first husband having been Richard Parkyns, a former Lord of the Manor of Ufton; and after her second widowhood she returned to the neighbourhood, made considerable additions to the house she bought, and finally died there in 1581. Having no children, she left the property to her first husband's nephew, Francis Parkyns, who was already the owner of the larger Manor of Ufton, to which it was henceforth joined. Part of a much-mutilated monument may be seen in the Parish Church of Ufton, erected during her lifetime by Lady Mervyn to her own memory and that of her first husband, Richard Parkyns. There is also, recorded on a black board in the same church, a benefaction bequeathed by her to the poor of Ufton, which is still annually distributed in Mid-Lent from the hall of Ufton Court. The oldest part of the Court is the kitchen. Perhaps it formed the central hall of the buildings of Lord Lovell's time, though these were probably not more than goodsized farm buildings; for the chief estates of the Lovell family were, as has been said, at Minster Lovell, where very extensive ruins of a noble residence still remain. The kitchen has a massive arched timber roof, and must have been originally of fine proportions; in modern days, however, it has been divided by a floor into two storeys. At the further end the old buttery-hatch, now blocked up, can still be seen. Lady Mervyn's additions consisted of the entire east front, the porch, and probably the two wings. This long, low facade is strikingly picturesque; no less than nineteen gables break the outline of the roof, the upper storeys project and overhang one another, and the lattice casements jut out still further on wooden brackets from the walls. The whole is constructed of a framework of oak posts and beams, filled in with rubble and covered with rough-cast. The principal rooms are on this side of the house; the great hall, with a very beautiful stucco-work ceiling, occupies the usual place to the right of the entrance. Here are to be seen, on the upper part of the north wall, the initials of Lady Mervyn and her two husbandsPRE for Richard and Elizabeth Parkyns, and MIE for |