The ancient town of Wallingford, famous for its castle, had a guild hall with selds under it, the earliest mention of which dates back to the reign of Edward II, and occurs constantly as the place wherein the burghmotes were held.  The present town hall was erected in 1670—­a picturesque building on stone pillars.  This open space beneath the town hall was formerly used as a corn-market, and so continued until the present corn-exchange was erected half a century ago.  The slated roof is gracefully curved, is crowned by a good vane, and a neat dormer window juts out on the side facing the market-place.  Below this is a large Renaissance window opening on to a balcony whence orators can address the crowds assembled in the market-place at election times.  The walls of the hall are hung with portraits of the worthies and benefactors of the town, including one of Archbishop Laud.  A mayor’s feast was, before the passing of the Municipal Corporations Act, a great occasion in most of our boroughs, the expenses of which were defrayed by the rates.  The upper chamber in the Wallingford town hall was formerly a kitchen, with a huge fire-place, where mighty joints and fat capons were roasted for the banquet.  Outside you can see a ring of light-coloured stones, called the bull-ring, where bulls, provided at the cost of the Corporation, were baited.  Until 1840 our Berkshire town of Wokingham was famous for its annual bull-baiting on St. Thomas’s Day.  A good man, one George Staverton, was once gored by a bull; so he vented his rage upon the whole bovine race, and left a charity for the providing of bulls to be baited on the festival of this saint, the meat afterwards to be given to the poor of the town.  The meat is still distributed, but the bulls are no longer baited.  Here at Wokingham there was a picturesque old town hall with an open undercroft, supported on pillars; but the townsfolk must needs pull it down and erect an unsightly brick building in its stead.  It contains some interesting portraits of royal and distinguished folk dating from the time of Charles I, but how the town became possessed of these paintings no man knoweth.

Another of our Berkshire towns can boast of a fine town hall that has not been pulled down like so many of its fellows.  It is not so old as some, but is in itself a memorial of some vandalism, as it occupies the site of the old Market Cross, a thing of rare beauty, beautifully carved and erected in Mary’s reign, but ruthlessly destroyed by Waller and his troopers during the Civil War period.  Upon the ground on which it stood thirty-four years later—­in 1677—­the Abingdon folk reared their fine town hall; its style resembles that of Inigo Jones, and it has an open undercroft—­a kindly shelter from the weather for market women.  Tall and graceful it dominates the market-place, and it is crowned with a pretty cupola and a fine vane.  You can find a still more interesting hall in the town, part of the old abbey, the gateway with its