Thatcham

Thatcham is a town in Berkshire, England located 3 miles (5 km) east of Newbury and 15 miles (24 km) west of Reading. It covers approximately 8.75 square miles (23 km ²) and has a population of 23,000 people (2003) This number has grown rapidly over the last few decades from 5,000 in 1951 and 7,500 in 1961.

It lies on the River Kennet, the Kennet and Avon Canal, the A4 road and the course of a Roman road, Ermin Street. It is also served by Thatcham railway station on the line between Newbury and Reading with connections to the rest of the UK, Two Trains an hour run in each direction. Employment is provided by a number of light industrial units and it is also a dormitory town for Newbury, Reading and London.

The area has been occupied continuously from prehistoric times - the well-preserved remains of a Mesolithic village dating from 7700 BC have been found in its vicinity. Indeed it is noted in the Guinness Book of Records as the oldest continuously inhabited place in England. The Mesolithic village, discovered near the Sewage Works in Lower Way Lane, being of particular note as one of the finest temporary settlements of nomadic hunters ever found. Hearths and flint knapping floors were uncovered, as well as flint , essay on flint tools found at Thatcham and even bone tools, and the remains of numerous animals, including elk, beaver, wolf and pine marten

There is also evidence of Bronze Age settlement. The Harts Hill area of Thatcham being mention in several sources for a Bronze age settlement.

The Iron Age settlement would have be part of the Atrebates Tribe, whose capital was located at CALLEVA ATREBATVM, the modern day village of Silchester, Hampshire. The Atrebates territory covered West Sussex, West Surrey, Hampshire, Berkshire and North West Wiltshire. There was another Tribal centre at Shelley in West Sussex.

The first settlement of any size appears to a been a Roman wayside village in the area around Bath Road/Northfield Road/ Henwick Lane. A roman Drain/ Water supply was found in Park Avenue It spread along the Ermin Way between Cirencester and Silchester, just north of where it spanned the Kennet. This important river crossing seems to have possessed an actual Roman bridge, as opposed to the more usual ford, for it is mentioned in an old Saxon charter as 'Welshman's Bridge' (IE. Romano-Briton's Bridge). It probably stood somewhere near the present Railway Station

The village itself has produced numerous finds including parts of leather shoes, oyster shells, metal drinking vessels and much pottery. However, of actual structures, only a few dry stone foundations, roof tiles, a hearth and a 3 ft deep boundary ditch have been identified, so the habitations were probably largely of wooden construction.

A number of wells - one with a wooden shelter - have been excavated and the most dramatic find from the site, so far, was discovered in one which was 12 ft deep: a large hoard of pewter. This prized collection of tableware was probably hidden in times of trouble in the early 4th century. There was a flagon, two shallow bowls, a deep bowl, an oval dish and a flat plate. They seem to originally have been placed under lock and key in a wooden box. Perhaps of more interest though are the pieces of bronze, iron slag and coal which indicate that Roman Thatcham was an industrial settlement of some sort. Although there were also items of a more agricultural nature: an iron meat cleaver, a pair of shears and a millstone. The settlement was occupied between at least the middle of the 3rd century and the late 4th century, but its name is unknown. In the late or immediate post Roman period it is just possible that it was referred to as the Hen-Vicus, a Celtic phrase meaning 'Old Town' which survives today at Henwick, near Ashmore Green.

The name may have been derived from that of a Saxon chief called Tace (or perhaps Tac or Tec), who established a village in around 500. The settlement was known as Taceham - ham meaning village in Saxon. It is also possible that the name may have come from the Saxon thaec (thatch). Wherever it came from, the name Taceham persisted until after the Norman Conquest in 1066 before going through several minor changes until the current one was adopted in the sixteenth century.

Unfortunately, little is known of Saxon life in Thatcham, but the place seems to have been of some importance. Thatcham Church was a Saxon Minster which may have been founded by St. Birinus in the 7th century. Its parish probably once encompassed the whole of the local hundred of Taceham. The hundred court apparently met at the ford over the Kennet where the Swing Bridge now stands. The place was called Cottlesettle Ford from at least the 14th century. By AD 971, the manor was in the hands of the Aelfeah (alias Alphege), the Ealdorman of Hampshire. He was an important official and cousin of the wicked Queen Aelfthrith, but probably rarely visited Berkshire. He would have lived in Winchester. In his will, he gave Thatcham to his friend, King Edgar the Peacemaker - freeing all his slaves there into the bargain - and it remained a Royal manor for the next hundred and fifty years. Various Archaeological searches have revealed vary little of this period of Thatcham’s History.

.By the time of the Domes day Survey, instigated in 1086 after the Normans had taken over the country, of the Berkshire hundreds, Thatcham (or Taceham) was second only to Old Windsor. The 'town' was inhabited by thirty-five villeins (semi-free labourers) and twelve cottars (smaller cottagers), but these were only the heads of the households and there could have been upwards of 250 people there. Some of them, paying rent on twelve hagae (town houses) were presumably freemen. The population owned 25 ploughs (and their teams) for cultivating the land, but there was also 147 acres of meadow, and woodland that could support some sixty pigs. There were two mills and the church had two priests. This very prosperous manor was bringing in an income of Â£34, compared with Greenham and Midgham's £6 each (and others of considerably less).

In 1125, King Henry I granted the manor of Thatcham to his new foundation of Reading Abbey. Thus the all powerful Abbots became lords of the manor and, as well as being exempt from taxes and having the right to hold their own manor courts , they were allowed to hold a Sunday market in the church. It was during this period that Thatcham became the great rival of nearby Newbury, a 'new town' set up soon after the Norman Conquest. Henry II issued three charters confirming Thatcham's market and compelling the men of Berkshire to attend, but the Newbury townsfolk became jealous and attacked the Thatcham merchants, overturning their stalls and scattering their wares. The King immediately ordered that the Newbury folk restrain themselves; but the animosity between the two towns remained and this was not helped by a further grant, in 1222, for a fair in Thatcham, to be held on St. Thomas A'Becket's Day (7th July). In 1304, a chapel to this saint was erected on the Bath Road where it can still be seen today - although subsequent to being the Bluecoat School, it is now hoped that it will become a Local History Museum. old blue coat school Around the same time, the town's prosperity was reaching its peak and the Abbot of Reading, being in financial difficulties, appears to have used his influence with King Edward I to gain borough status for Thatcham. The incorporation charter no longer exists but, by the early 14th century, Thatcham was certainly one of the 'four boroughs of Berkshire'

The close proximity of the two markets of Thatcham and Newbury intensified commercial rivalry and much ill feeling existed between , leading to skirmishes between residents of the towns, them, at least until the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.

Later this fair was abandoned, and two one-day fairs were held instead, during April and September, continuing until 1888. A Market has been reintroduced in, which takes place in the Broadway on a Friday, and is typical of small markets throughout the UK

The town had a period of great prosperity around 1304, when part of the building now known as the Bluecoat School was constructed as a small chapel. At this time the population was larger than Newbury's but declined as a result of the Black Death which decimated the area in 1348.

The people of Thatcham suffered terribly during the period of the bubonic plague known as the Black Death, which struck the area between 1348 and 1350. Almost the total population of the Manors of Greenham and Crookham perished, and Thatcham and Newbury were similarly afflicted.

"Of the common people, together with religious and clerkes, there died an innumerable sort, for no man but God knew how many".

The Decline of Thatcham

The plague came at a critical time in the development of Thatcham. Property depreciated, some houses stood empty and fell into ruins and the fields lay neglected. Thatcham was further stifled by the commercial rivalry of Newbury, which enjoyed a more favourable geographical position as a route centre, and which benefited greatly from the enterprise and industry of its craftsmen and the efficient organization of its mayors and corporations.

In 1540 the market of Thatcham was returned as valueless, and no mention whatsoever is made of it by Ashmole in the seventeenth century. The last mention of Thatcham as a borough was made in the records of the final borough court held in 1834, and Thatcham's town annual fairs were finally abandoned in 1888.

After the quarrel between King Henry VIII and the Pope over the King's failure to secure papal sanction for his divorce from Catherine of Aragon, the Church of England was separated from the Roman Church by Act of Parliament and the monasteries were dissolved and their properties confiscated by the crown.

Reading Abbey was dissolved in 1539, and in 1540 the Borough and Manor of Thatcham and the Manor of Bucklebury were granted by King Henry to Sir John Winchcombe, the son and heir of the Jack of Newbury, in return for a payment of £2,619 13s 4d.

The closing of the monastery was a disaster for the poor and sick of the district, who could no longer look to the monks for charity. There was a great increase in vagrancy and some people perished from starvation and exposure. "Poor man found dead" is a common entry in local Church records after 1540.

In the late 18th century, improved agricultural methods led to a great increase in land enclosure. Small landowners became employed labourers; but wages were low and, in 1800, three hundred people gathered in Thatcham with the hope of forcing a local increase. These 'Food Riots' were soon dispersed by the Thatcham Volunteer Cavalry Corps (Thatcham Association Cavalry, raised 24 May 1798; disbanded 1802; one troop re-formed 24 Feb.. 1803 as Thatcham Volunteer Cavalry; disbanded later) who had been formed in order to counteract a possible French invasion. Thirty years later, increased mechanization was causing mass unemployment and there were ugly scenes at Thatcham during the winter of 1830. Many of the village workers were involved in the local Machine or Swing Riots of the time. An angry mob of some three hundred men marched on the vestry to demand jobs and pay increases. They were received in friendship, but little hope was held out for the meeting of their requests. The next day they marched on Bucklebury, smashing farm machinery as they went.

In July 2007, Thatcham was hit by flash flooding after 24 Hours of torrential Rain. Run off water from High Ground north of Thatcham made many roads impassable. Several Roads were flooded and the Railway line was closed.

The Winchcombe Family

The Winchcombe Family held Thatcham throughout the seventeenth century, but on the death of Sir Henry Winchcombe in 1703, there was no male heir to succeed to either the manor or the baronetcy. Sir Henry therefore settled it on his second daughter Elizabeth , who died in 1705, leaving Thatcham and Bucklebury to her sister Frances, the wife of Henry St. John, later Viscount Bolingbroke.

In 1722 Thatcham Manor was sold by the crown to the Duke of Chandos, who in turn sold it to Brigadier General Waring in the same year. It was General Waring who enclosed Dunstan Park and built a fine manor house there known as Dunstan House. He was in fact the first Lord of Thatcham in recorded history to live permanently within the boundaries of the manor.

Military Record

The Vicoria Cross is awarded for the most conspicuous bravery, or some daring or pre-eminent act of valour or self-sacrifice, or extreme devotion to duty in the presence of the enemy.
It is issued to British and Commonwealth Forces
Wikipedia Link

Living Recipients

No reference to Thatcham would be complete without mention of the fact that this community has produced three holders of the Victoria Cross. Even more distinctive is the fact that two of these medals are held by brothers.

On 2 August 1900 at Mosilikatse Nek, South Africa, when a sergeant who had gone forward to reconnoitre was wounded, Private House rushed out from cover (although cautioned not to do so as the fire from the enemy was very hot), picked up the wounded sergeant and tried to bring him into shelter. In doing this he was severely wounded, but he warned his comrades not to come to his assistance as the fire was so heavy. .wikipedia.org/wiki/William_John_House

On 28 September 1915 at Fosse 8, near Vermelles, France, when the regimental bombers could make no headway, Second Lieutenant Turner volunteered to lead a new bombing attack. He made his way down the communication trench practically alone, throwing bombs incessantly with such dash and determination that he drove off the Germans about 150 yards without a check. His action enabled the reserves to advance with very little loss and subsequently covered the flank of his regiment in its retirement, thus probably averting the loss of some hundreds of men. Second Lieutenant Turner died three days later of the wounds received in this action.

He was shot in the abdomen at close range during the action for which he was awarded the VC. His military death states that he was reported to have died at No. 1 Casualty Clearing Station, Cloques on 1 October and he was buried at the Military Cemetery Cloques.

On 27 October 1942, at El Aqqaqir (Kidney Ridge), Western Desert, Egypt, Lieutenant Colonel Turner was commanding a battalion of the Rifle Brigade. After overcoming a German position, the battalion fought off desperate counterattacks by 90 tanks, destroying or immobilizing more than 50 of them. During the action, one of the 6-pounder guns was left with only one officer and a sergeant, so Colonel Turner joined them as loader, and between them they destroyed another five tanks. Not until the last tank had been repulsed did he consent to having a wound in his head attended to.

There is a Norman parish church of St. Mary which was largely reconstructed in 1857. This is believed to be built on the same site as an earlier Saxon Church. It was also previously known as St. Luke's.

A local attraction is the Nature Discovery Center situated at Thatcham Lake, a flooded gravel quarry.

Thatcham is located north of the former Cold War U S A F E base at RAF Greenham Common, which was famous in the last part of the Twentieth Century as it was chosen as one of two site in England to site Tomahawk Nuclear tipped Cruise Missiles. This resulted in the formation of the Wimmins (sic) peace Movement with large scale demonstrations outside the base.

ABOUT THATCHAM

(all links below are to external web sites over which I have no Control)

The Decline of Thatcham

The Winchcombe Family

Military Record