“ West Hagbourne’s cover in particular is a lovely period piece – a Helen Allingham painting of c.1900 showing a cruck-framed cottage on the square, which is also illustrated by a couple of good early photographs in the text …
This volume has a particularly evocative collection of views of its older cottages before ‘modernisation’ …
A simple test of the topographical awareness of any study is often the number and quality of its maps. In range and clarity, West Hagbourne scores particularly well …
Only Benson and West Hagbourne attempt a balanced chronological coverage of their village from its origins. West Hagbourne provides a time-chart setting the village against the background of national events …
West Hagbourne covers manorial descent most thoroughly … and provides lists of incumbents …
West Hagbourne is particularly strong in recording local memories: some poignant, like the tale of a Hagbourne labourer reputedly sacked for picking up a windfall apple, who emigrated to New Zealand; and some amusing, like the conviction that Hitler’s decision not to invade Britain was largely due to the formation of the village’s unit of the Local Defence Volunteers …
A notable feature … is the placing of families in particular houses; this is done in West Hagbourne, which employs the imaginative device of tracing the journey of the census enumerator of 1851 …
… each book reviewed here is a very creditable effort, and they will remain of value long after many more costly millennium celebrations have been forgotten.”