WANTAGE  , a

market town in the Abingdon parliamentary division of Berkshire, England . Pop. of urban district (1901), 3766 . It lies in the richly wooded Valr, of White Horse, in a hollow at the foot of the steep hills which border the Vale on the south, 2 M . S. of Wantage Road station on the Great Western railway, with which a steam tramway connects it . The church of St Peter and St Paul is cruciform, and as a whole Perpendicular in appearance, but retains a nave arcade and ornate tower-arches of the Early English period . The font is a fine specimen of the same style; and there is beautiful woodwork in the chancel . An altar-tomb in alabaster of 1361, and a fine brass of 1414, commemorate members of the family of Fitzwarren . There are other brasses of the 15th and 16th centuries . The neighbouring building of the grammar school preserves a Norman door from another church, which formerly stood in the same churchyard with St Peter's . In the broad market-place is a great statue of King Alfred, executed by Count Gleichen and unveiled in 1877 ; for Wantage is famous as the birthplace of the king in 849 . The town has a large agricultural trade and ironworks . The title of Baron Wantage of Lockinge was taken in 1885 by Sir Robert Loyd-Lindsay (b .

1832) on his

elevation to the peerage . He was the son of General James Lindsay of Balcarres, but took the additional surname of Loyd in 1858 on marrying the heiress of Lord Overstone, the banker; he fought with his regiment the Scots Fusilier Guards in the Crimea and won the V.C., retiring as lieutenant-colonel . He was M.P. for Berks from 1865 to 1885, and was financial secretary to the War Office in 1877-1880 . The title became extinct at his death in 1900 .