On a county-by-county basis the publication of editions of the 1851 census of religious worship has been proceeding on a steady if unpredictable course under various auspices and by different hands. Readers of this Journal are likely to be aware of the census and the scholarly debates surrounding its reliability and they need no repetition here. The editor does rehearse its methodology and the general questions surrounding it but, very properly, the main thrust of his admirable seventy-five-page introduction concerns the particular features of Warwickshire. The county is described, not too surprisingly, as one of contrasts, with a wide variety of settlement types and activity. The explosive growth of Birmingham transformed its overall character. The nature of rural-urban interdependence is seen as the crucial factor in understanding the ecclesiastical history of the county. In more than half of Warwickshire's rural parishes in 1851 the Established Church had a monopoly of places of worship. The Birmingham conurbation contained the largest number of different nonconformist groups, including at least one example of every denomination except the Moravians. There were stark contrasts in building size between and within denominations. The details behind such general observations can be examined carefully on a case by case basis in the returns which naturally occupy most of the volume. Users are helped in drawing such conclusions as they may wish by eleven tables, scattered through the introduction, dealing with the distribution of ‘Open’ and ‘Close’ parishes in rural Warwickshire, the Sunday School scholars in different denominations, the social class of nonconformist signatories to census returns – to name but a few matters. Additionally, users are helped by a grouped set of eight maps which plot the distribution of Anglican churches, Wesleyan Methodist chapels, Primitive Methodist chapels, ‘Other’ Methodist chapels, Independent chapels, Baptist chapels, ‘other’ chapels and Roman Catholic chapels respectively. Beginning and end paper maps identify by name county boundaries, parish boundaries and registration district boundaries, and ‘Open’ and ‘Close’ parishes respectively. One can still argue about the significance of what the 1851 census as a whole tells us but there can be no doubt that it is valuable to have another county's returns made so readily and expertly accessible. The Dugdale Society is to be congratulated on moving, for the first time, into the nineteenth century!