Aldermaston

The 17th-century Aldermaston House, showing the building's proximity to the parish church

Before the 1066 Norman conquest, the land and properties of Aldermaston formed part of the estates of Harold Godwinson, the Earl of Wessex, who later became King Harold II of England.[5] Harold's assessment of Aldermaston valued the village's 15 hides at £20 a year.[5] As with much of the land seized by William the Conqueror after his arrival in England in 1066, Aldermaston was held in demesne.[5] His Domesday Book of 1086 identified the existence of a mill, worth twenty shillings, and two fisheries, worth five shillings.[6] During the rest of William's reign, and that of his son William Rufus, Aldermaston was owned by the Crown.[7]

The history of the Lords of the Manor of Aldermaston Court can be traced to Achard D'Aldermaston, who was born in 1036.[8] Six families have had lordship of the Aldermaston estate. In the 11th century, Henry I gave Aldermaston to Robert Achard (or Hachard[9]) of Sparsholt.[10][11] In the mid-12th century, the Achard family founded the church of St Mary the Virgin.[12] In 1292, Edward I granted the right for the lord of the manor to hold a market in the village. Another charter was granted by Henry IV, with evidence that the market existed until approximately 1900.[5] The Achards also established an annual fair to observe the feast of St. Thomas the Martyr on 7 July.[5]

Aldermaston was held by the Achard family until the 14th century, when it passed through marriage to Thomas De La Mare of Nunney Castle, Somerset.[7][11] The De La Mare family governed Aldermaston for approximately 120 years, until Elizabeth De La Mare whose male relatives predeceased her—married into the Forster family.[7] In about 1636, the Forsters built a large manor house to the east of the church. The house incorporated parts of an earlier (15th century) house, including the chimney stacks.[5] The Forsters' house was fronted by two porches, separated by a central section with seven bays.[13] The porches had ornate Solomonic columns, similar to those at the University Church of St Mary the Virgin in Oxford.[13]

The interior of the house featured a number of mythical statues,[14] as well as artwork by Gaspard Dughet, portraits of William Congreve and Godfrey Kneller, and Tintoretto's Esther Before Ahasuerus.[15] The house's Jacobean garden featured patterns of groves and avenues of oak, yew, Spanish chestnut and lime trees.[12] In the early 18th century the Forsters oversaw the building of almshouses in Church Road. Built by R Dixon in 1706, the houses became known as "Dixon's Cottages". The manor passed through the Forster family until 1752, when the Forster lineage ended and the estate was inherited by Ralph Congreve, the husband of the last Forster's grand-niece.[7] On Ralph's death a second-cousin of dramatist William Congreve inherited the manor.[16] The Congreve Family owned the estate at the time of the 1830 Swing Riots. The rioters marched across Aldermaston, wrecking twenty-three agricultural machines. Workers were so frightened by the riots that they left their machinery in the open in an attempt to limit additional damage.[17]

Aldermaston Manor was built in the 1840s

Joseph Nash's 1849 lithograph of the staircase at Aldermaston Manor

In 1843, the manor house was destroyed by fire, news of which was carried in The Illustrated London News.[12] The estate passed into the Court of Chancery and was purchased by Daniel Higford Davall Burr. In 1848, Burr commissioned the building of a neoclassical mansion to the south west of the original building. Burr saved the 17th-century manor's wooden staircase, though all that remains of the building is a staircase to the cellar (which is now home to a colony of bats).[12] By 1851 the new building was complete, costing £20,000 and having a Tudor-like appearance.[18] Burr held the estate until his death 50 years later, when this was inherited by his son, who sold it in 1893.

The buyer was the wealthy stockbroker Charles Edward Keyser, who was preoccupied with the idea of keeping the village unchanged—or, as he described it, "unspoilt".[19] He forbade advertisements, opposed all modernisation and refused to allow any expansion by the building of houses. He did, however, commission the building of a parish hall in 1897 and provided the village with a water supply,[20] and the water fountain on the small village green was installed to commemorate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. Keyser oversaw the restoration of the village almshouses in 1906 and 1924, and defrayed the cost of a memorial oak tablet in memory of those killed in World War I. Of the 100 men from the village who served in the war, 22 were killed (the highest percentage of town population in the country). The tablet bears the name of each man lost in action.[21]

During Keyser's lordship, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales listed Adminston as a possible name for the village.[16] On his death in 1929, his wife, Mary, continued to occupy the house until she died in 1938. The estate was auctioned off in September 1938, and many lots were purchased by their occupiers. The manor house was bought by Associated Electrical Industries (AEI) for £16,000.[22] One of the houses in the village is recorded as having fetched £1,375.[23] As AEI's chairman, Felix Pole became the de jure Lord of the Manor upon their purchase of Aldermaston Court.[24]

During the 1940s RAF Aldermaston was created on the parkland at the southern end of the parish, with XIX Tactical Air Command stationed at the manor house.[25] After World War II, the manor was returned to AEI who built the MERLIN reactor on part of the land. The reactor was opened on 6 November 1959 by The Duke of Edinburgh.[26] With the opening of the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment (AWRE) in 1950, Aldermaston became synonymous with a number of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) marches.[27]

In 1953, Pole stepped down as Lord of the Manor and was succeeded by AEI's senior representative, Thomas Allibone. Allibone held the position for 32 years, until Blue Circle Industries acquired the estate in 1985.[28] Allibone was succeeded by Tony Jackson, and the current Lord of the Manor is Andy Hall.[29] Blue Circle could not gain planning permission in the grounds of the court, so the MERLIN reactor was demolished to make way for Portland House. With a full redevelopment of Aldermaston Manor, the £14 million office development became Blue Circle's international headquarters and the complex was opened by Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester.[23]

The village of Aldermaston derives its name from Ældremanestone, Eldremanestune or Hedlremanestone, the Old English for "Ealdorman's Homestead".[20] The Ealdorman—or Alderman—was a person of extreme importance, equating to the modern-day Lord-Lieutenant of the county. Although his country estate was in Aldermaston, he would have spent most of the time in the original county town of Wallingford.[17] The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states that the first known Ealdorman of Berkshire, Aethelwulf, fought the Danes with Ethelred of Wessex at the nearby Battle of Englefield in 871.[30] Other documented names include Aldermaston ad Pontem (11th century),[5] Aldremanneston (12th century),[31] Aldremaneston (13th century),[31] Aldermanston and Aldermanneston Achard (14th century),[5][32] and Aldmerston (19th century).[33]

The landscape of Aldermaston is influenced by Paices Hill and Rag Hill, which are extremities of the chalk formation the North Wessex Downs as part of the Thames Basin Heaths.[47][48] The topography of the land in the parish generally slopes northward to the River Kennet.[43] The soil in the parish is high in clay. Due to the parish's location within the Kennet Valley there is a high concentration of alluvium, with the content largely determined by the London Clay Formation, the Bagshot Formation, and the Bracklesham Beds.[5]

The flood grilles on Church Road (the rebuilt section of the wall is lighter than the older sections)

The 2007 floods affected the lower end of The Street

The quite flat low clay of Aldermaston's north has with exceptional rainfall led to flooding certain populous streets on three occasions—1971, 1989, and 2007.[49][50] The flood in 1971 caused by torrential rain was exacerbated by the non-porous tarmac and buildings of the Atomic Weapons Establishment which managed for the first time to overwhelm its balancing ponds.[50] This happened again in July 1989, when an average of 6 inches (150 mm) of rain was deposited across the parish in two hours; water rose 5 feet (1.5 m) above the ponds and broke through a brick wall. The destroyed wall was rebuilt with 17 grilles to avoid another build-up of water.[51] A donation of £10,000 was given to the village by Blue Circle.[52]

In July 2007, torrential rain flooded some of the traditional village centre and primary school.[53] The storm coincided with the annual Glade Festival and jeopardised the event.[54] The festival gates were temporarily closed while organisers assessed the flooding, which submerged one of the stages.[55] The festival's car park was incapacitated, with thousands of revellers stranded in the village and surrounding lanes.[56] The floods also hit the Church of England primary school, with the Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service evacuating pupils and staff from the school in life rafts.[27][57]

The evacuation used four rafts, rescuing pupils and teachers from the school through windows.[58] The 165 people (140 pupils and 25 members of staff) were taken uphill to the parish hall, where blankets and sleeping bags had been provided.[53] Ian Henderson, a police constable at Thames Valley Police stated that the emergency services were "really stretched because of what happened over the county and the Glade event", that "the A340 road junction was two or three-foot under water", and predicted that "a lot of householders would be homeless."[53]

In about 1797[73] a schoolmaster living in the village cultivated the Williams pear. The schoolmaster (either Mr Wheeler[73] or his successor, John Stair[74]) was the original cultivator, but the pear (a cultivar of the European Pear) was named after Richard Williams of Turnham Green, who grew several grafts of the original tree.[73] On 5 December 1956, a plaque commemorating the tree was unveiled on the wall of the village school.[73]

The Domesday survey records a mill in Aldermaston. Aldermaston Mill, previously called the "Kingsmill", supplied flour to Huntley & Palmers in Reading.[75] The mill was owned by Wasing's Mount family throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. William Mount let the mill to Francis Webb (1797–1811), Mr Sherwood (1811–1820), Mr King (1820–1824), Mr Waldren (1824–1828), Mr Mathews (1828–1848), and William Gilchrist (1848–1856).[76] Gilchrist (Mathews' business partner) bought the mill from Mount in 1856 using money inherited from his brother's death the previous year.[77] Owning it outright for approximately a year, he drowned in the River Kennet in 1857 after visiting the Angel public house in Woolhampton.[77] Joseph Crockett purchased the mill in an auction the same year, before it was acquired by a Richard Sisling of Godalming in 1858. In approximately 1860, the mill was purchased by the Kersley family. Between then and 1885, it was operated by Anthony Kersley, a miller and maltster who employed "six men and a boy, a carter, several domestic servants and a governess".[77] Kersley's son, also named Anthony, ran the mill until 1895. That year, Walter Parson bought the mill and operated it until approximately 1897. Charles Keyser subsequently oversaw the restoration on the mill building which "had been untenanted for upwards of three years". He let the mill out to a Mr Iremonger from 1901. Locally farmed wheat was milled at Aldermaston Mill until the 1920s.[78] Iremonger used the mill until the late 1920s, shortly before Keyser's death.[77] After Keyser had died and the Aldermaston estate had been divided and sold, his widow, Mary, approached Evelyn Arlott to run the mill as a tea room and guesthouse. The Arlott family purchased the mill in approximately 1939, after the death of Mary Keyser.[79]

In 1939, there were seven farms on the Aldermaston estate—Forsters Farm, Village Farm, Church Farm, Upper Church Farm, Raghill Farm, Park Farm, and Soke Farm. These accounted for approximately 75% of the estate's land.[80] Aside from these, there were six smallholdings within the parish but outside the land owned by the court. These were Springhill Farm, Court Farm, Strawberry Farm, Circus Farm, Ravenswing Farm, and Frouds Farm.[80] Of these, Church Farm and Forster's Farm remain in operation.[81] Upper Church Farm was originally known as Harry's Farm, after a William Harry who died in 1544.[82]

The Hind's Head Inn

The local pub is named The Hind's Head in honour of the Forster family crest. Built in the 17th century and originally operating as a coaching inn,[83] the establishment was named The Pack Horse during the De La Mare and Forster lordships and The Congreve Arms throughout the Congreves' ownership.[84][85] The building has a large black and gold clock set into the gable, and a small bell turret upon which is a gilt fox-shaped weather vane.[83] The bell was intended to be rung as an air-raid siren during the Second World War.[86] In the early 19th century the pub's signboard carried the arms of the Congreve family, as well as branding for a company named "Adams".

In the British Parliamentary Papers of 1817, the Committee on the State of the Police in the Metropolis reported evidence of a John Adams—a Reading-based distiller and hop merchant—who competed for business against H & G Simonds Brewery.[87] By 1850, the pub brewed beer on-site; a brewery was built as an out-building behind the main pub building. John Knight produced beer at the pub for 40 years, selling it for 2d. The brewery building is still in existence, with the wooden louvres still operational.[86] The building is now the pub's kitchen. In the 1970s, the pub was owned by Whitbread.[86][88] In the mid-1990s the pub was taken over by Gales Brewery (having previously been a free house), later becoming tied to Fuller's Brewery on their acquisition of Gales in 2006.[89][90] In the 1970s, the pub was home to the Kennet Folk Club.[86]

The pub has its own gaol-house, the lock-up, at the rear. Built out of red brick, the small single-storey building has a shallow domed roof. The inside of the lock-up measures approximately 7.5 feet (2.3 m) by 6 feet (1.8 m), and is enclosed by a studded door with a grille.[91] It was last used in 1865 and its drunk inhabitant burnt himself to death trying to keep warm.[23][84] The lock-up was designated as a Grade II listed building in April 1967.[92] On 11 September 2010 the lock-up was opened to the public as part of the Heritage Open Days scheme.[91] Another pub in the parish, The Butt Inn, is located approximately 1.25 miles (2.01 km) north-east of the village.[93] The pub is named after the archery butts that were located in the fields opposite the pub.[94] The Falcon Inn was on the southern border of the parish. The pub, which closed in 2009, was demolished in 2011 to improve traffic flow to AWE.[95] In 2013, the adjacent petrol station was rebuilt, extending onto the pub site. The Aldermaston Brewery was established at Aldermaston Wharf in 1770, and was demolished in the 1950s.[96] It was replaced with a cable factory, which was demolished in 1990.[97]

Old Village Farm (on Fishermans Lane) is now the location of a wood yard, used since the 1930s to prepare local willow for the production of cricket bats.[98] The trees are grown at Harbour Hill Copse,[99] where 70 trees are felled annually for this purpose. There are approximately 1000 trees growing at any given time.[100] The workers at the yard cut the wood into approximate bat shapes, then cure the wood in a kiln. The clefts of wood are then shipped to India, where the final manufacturing can be undertaken under moisture-controlled conditions.[99] In the 1960s, Blue Peter aired a short documentary on the cricket bat production entitled "The Life of a Cricket Bat". It was presented by Christopher Trace.[101]

The yard would take on three up-coming cricketers for the winter, in the hope that the hard work would "toughen them up" to get them picked for the England cricket team. One year the yard had help from Frank Tyson, Alan Moss, and Peter Loader. The following year they hosted three Davids—David Kaufman, David Spragbury, and David Gibson.[101] The wood yard was featured on A Question of Sport, when cricketer Graham Gooch took part in the programme's "Mystery Guest" round.[102] Gooch endorsed the bats made from Aldermaston willow, which were sold by Stuart Surridge. When he scored 333 runs against India at Lord's in the 1990 test season, the Turbo 333 bat, made from Aldermaston wood, was launched in his honour.[103]

In 1955, the Aldermaston Pottery was established on the main street[104] by studio potters Alan Caiger-Smith and Geoffrey Eastop.[104] The pottery was renowned for tin-glazed and porcelain wares,[104] which used scrap wood from the Village Farm woodyard to fire the kiln.[105] The pottery closed in 2006.[106] It had previously scaled back its output in 1993 due to Caiger-Smith's partial retirement after the 1992 recession.[107]

Aerial view of AWE

The Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), for which Aldermaston has become known,[108] is less than 1 mile (1.6 km) south of the village. The establishment is where the United Kingdom designs and manufactures the warheads for its stock of Trident missiles, and where decommissioned and redundant nuclear warheads are dismantled.[108] In April 1958, the first Aldermaston March was held.[109] The march saw around 3,000 protesters march from London to Aldermaston over four days, with a total attendance of 12,000 at the establishment's gates.[109]

The 50th anniversary of the event was marked on 24 March 2008 with the "Bomb Stops Here" protest, attended by Vivienne Westwood and Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) president Walter Wolfgang.[110][111] The 2008 demonstration was the biggest protest staged by CND in ten years.[112] Until 2005, AWE discharged "pre-treated waste water"[113] into the River Thames at Pangbourne via an 11.8 miles (19.0 km) pipeline which runs under roads and fields within the parish.[114] A water processing facility was installed on-site in 2006, though the Pangbourne Pipeline remains in situ.[113]

Lafarge Aggregates owns various sites in the parish. In 1974 the village won an appeal against Pioneer Concrete's application for gravel extraction near the village.[115] Similar events took place in March 2003 when hundreds of local residents protested against an application of gravel extraction by Lafarge.[116] Larfarge's initial appeal, in April 2003, was turned down by West Berkshire Council. A further application to extract aggregate at the Wasing Estate was due to be decided in 2010.[49] One former extraction site, Butts Lake Quarry, is now a local nature reserve and the flooded lakes have been identified as a Site of Special Scientific Interest and is now operated by the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust (BBOWT).[117] The reserve contains specimens of trees such as alder, cherry, hawthorn, oak, and willow. Examples of reeds present include typha latifolia, phragmites australis, mentha aquatica, and lythrum salicaria. Numerous species of bird nest in the reserve, including the common teal, shoveler, common kingfisher, water rail, and common nightingale.[117]

Britain's first roadside petrol station was opened by The AA on the Bath Road near Aldermaston on 2 March 1919.[118][119][120] The following year, one villager requested that a pump be installed by his house. "Chuffer" Ford, who lived in The Forge with his wife Olive,[121] was told by Keyser that it must be "behind a wall and recessed".[122] A hole was cut in the brick wall beside Ford's yard to house the Shell-branded pump.[121] The location of this pump is marked by a square hole in the present wall. Ford's business offered other motoring services, with signage reading "vacuum, oil, and cycles".[123] There is a number of small businesses in the village, including a hairdressing salon, a software development company and the village shop.[124] In the 1970s the hairdressers was a music shop, which was opened by Terry Wogan.[125] Before this it was a cooperative village stores started by Charles Keyser.[125]

There are two business parks in the parish—Calleva Business Park (on the Berkshire/Hampshire border)[126] and Youngs Industrial Estate (on Paices Hill).[127] The latter opened in the early 1980s, and is the location of Paices Wood Country Parkland, a wildlife project managed by BBOWT.[128] In 2007 Aldermaston won the Business Category Award in the regional final of the Calor Village of the Year competition.[129] The judges stated that the village "has a very successful business community" and that "local businesses are well-supported by villagers and in return these businesses support village activities".[130] In addition to the business award, the village was announced as the Overall Winner of the Calor "Berkshire Village of the Year" competition in 2006, as well as category winners in the "Building Community Life", "Business", "Young People" and "ICT" categories.[131][132]