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Aldermaston ( ) (1983). 9780192129765, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780192129765 is a village and civil parish in Berkshire, England. In the 2011 census, the parish had a population of 1,015. The village is in the Kennet Valley and bounds Hampshire to the south. It is approximately from Newbury, Basingstoke, and Reading and is from London.
Aldermaston may have been inhabited as early as 1690 BCE; a number of postholes and remains of cereal grains have been found in the area. Written history of the village is traced back at least as far as the 9th century CE, when the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles showed that the Ealdorman of Berkshire had his country estate in the village. The Manorialism of Aldermaston was established by the early 11th century, when the village was given to the Achard family by Henry I; the manor is documented in the Domesday Book of 1086. St Mary the Virgin Church was established in the 13th century, and some of the original Norman architecture remains in the building's structure. The last resident Lord of the Manor, Charles Keyser, died in 1929. Aldermaston Court, the manor estate and house, was requisitioned for armed forces use during the Second World War.
The name "Aldermaston" is well known in connection with the UK's nuclear weapons programme, as well as the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. The Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), which develops, maintains, and disposes of the UK's nuclear weaponry is in the parish. Built on the site of the former RAF Aldermaston, the plant has been the destination of numerous Aldermaston Marches.
The history of the Lords of the Manor of Aldermaston Court can be traced to Achard D'Aldermaston, who was born in 1036. Six families have had lordship of the Aldermaston estate. In the 11th century, Henry I gave Aldermaston to Robert Achard (or Hachard) of Sparsholt. In the mid-12th century, the Achard family founded the church of St Mary the Virgin. 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. The Achards also established an annual fair to observe the feast of St. Thomas the Martyr on 7 July.
Aldermaston was held by the Achard family until the 14th century, when it passed through marriage to Thomas of Nunney Castle, Somerset. The family governed Aldermaston for approximately 120 years, until Elizabeth whose male relatives predeceased her—married into the Forster family. 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 . The Forsters' house was fronted by two porches, separated by a central section with seven bays. The porches had ornate , similar to those at the University Church of St Mary the Virgin in Oxford. (1995). 9780719046797, Manchester University Press. ISBN 9780719046797
The interior of the house featured a number of mythical statues, (1996). 9780874133936, University of Delaware Press. ISBN 9780874133936 as well as artwork by Gaspard Dughet, portraits of William Congreve and Godfrey Kneller, and Tintoretto's Esther Before Ahasuerus. The house's Jacobean era garden featured patterns of groves and avenues of oak, Taxus baccata, Spanish chestnut and . In the early 18th century the Forsters oversaw the building of in Church Road. Built by R Dixon in 1706, the houses became known as "Dixon's Cottages". The Manorialism 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. On Ralph's death a second-cousin of dramatist William Congreve inherited the manor. The Congreve Family owned the estate at the time of the 1830 . 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.
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". 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, 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 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.
During Keyser's lordship, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales listed Adminston as a possible name for the village. 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. One of the houses in the village is recorded as having fetched £1,375. As AEI's chairman, Felix Pole became the de jure Lord of the Manor upon their purchase of Aldermaston Court.
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. Allibone was succeeded by Tony Jackson, and the current Lord of the Manor is Andy Hall. 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.
The civil parish council, elected by local residents, is in the area of West Berkshire unitary authority. The electoral ward of Aldermaston includes the neighbouring parishes of Wasing, Brimpton, Midgham, and Woolhampton and is the smallest ward in West Berkshire by population. The ward's councillor is Dominic Boeck, who represents the Conservative Party. Aldermaston is under the catchment of Thames Valley Police and is covered by the Brimpton Neighbourhood Policing Team.
At the southern end of The Street is a small triangular village green called The Loosey—possibly named after a "Lucy" who planted the oak tree which stands on the green. The Loosey is the site of a Roman Empire well, discovered in 1940 by a cow that almost fell down it. The Loosey was previously home to the village maypole (which was often climbed by Daniel Burr's monkey) and a drinking fountain erected by Charles Keyser to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria.
The River Kennet and River Enborne flow through the parish, and their confluence is approximately north of the village. The Kennet and Avon Canal forms part of the parish's boundaries with Woolhampton and Padworth. Sections of Grim's Bank are in the parish. Part of the earthwork in the AWE complex survives at a height of and with a ditch deep. The village has a couple of Sites of Special Scientific Interest called West's Meadow and Aldermaston Gravel Pits.
In July 2007, torrential rain flooded some of the traditional village centre and primary school. The storm coincided with the annual Glade Festival and jeopardised the event. The festival gates were temporarily closed while organisers assessed the flooding, which submerged one of the stages. The festival's car park was incapacitated, with thousands of revellers stranded in the village and surrounding lanes. 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 .
The evacuation used four rafts, rescuing pupils and teachers from the school through windows. 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. 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."
| Historical population of Aldermaston | |||||||||||
| Census (1801–2001); Census 2011; Cassey's History, Gazetteer and Directory of Berkshire and Oxfordshire (1868) | |||||||||||
A number of parish border changes occurred in the first half of the 20th century, including the net loss of to Beenham and Woolhampton on 1 April 1934 alone. By 2001, the parish population had reduced to 927.
[[File:Aldermaston population nokey.svg|thumb|alt=A pie chart showing 2005 population distribution in the parish of Aldermaston|Population distribution in the parish (2005):
Aldermaston Village
Aldermaston Wharf
Falcon Fields
Ravenswing/Pinelands
Raghill and other outlying areas]]
The 2001 United Kingdom Census identified that 99.3% of householders in the parish as White people. In 2005 30% of parish residents lived in the village. Of the 70% outside the village, 30% lived at Aldermaston Wharf, 20% in the local mobile home parks, 10% in the Falcon Fields development and 10% in "other outlying areas". Falcon Fields is a housing development on the southern border of the parish, completed in the early 2000s. Ravenswing and Pinelands are mobile home parks near the Hampshire border. Raghill is an industrial area to the east of the parish, which has some light residential developments. The average age of residents in the parish is approximately 50 with 31.5% of residents in the 45–64 age group. The average age of residents of Aldermaston Wharf is 30.7, and in the mobile home parks the average age is 53.9. Of these, 53.3% were female. This is in contrast with the 2001 census data, which showed that 49.8% were female.
In 2005, 3% of the parish population were unemployed and 25% were retired. The retirement figure increased in the Pinelands and Ravenswing areas, with a statistic of 42%. Most residents' places of work are in surrounding towns, with their location in the parish largely dictating where to look for work. The 2005 survey identified that residents in the south of the parish (Falcon Fields and Ravenswing/Pinelands) travel towards Tadley and Basingstoke whereas those further north in the parish tend to find work in Reading, Newbury and London.
At this time, of homes were owned outright, with owned with a mortgage. Rented accommodation accounted for of residences. The population at the 2011 census was 1,015, giving a population density of .
The Domesday survey records a watermill in Aldermaston. Aldermaston Mill, previously called the "Kingsmill", supplied flour to Huntley & Palmers in Reading. The mill was owned by Wasing's Mount family throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. The family 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). Gilchrist (Mathews' business partner) bought the mill from William Mount in 1856 using money inherited from his brother's death the previous year. Owning it outright for approximately a year, he drowned in the River Kennet in 1857 after visiting the Angel public house in Woolhampton. 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". 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. Iremonger used the mill until the late 1920s, shortly before Keyser's death. 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.
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. Aside from these, there were six 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. Of these, Church Farm and Forster's Farm remain in operation. Upper Church Farm was originally known as Harry's Farm, after a William Harry who died in 1544.
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 hops merchant—who competed for business against H & G Simonds Brewery. 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 Louver still operational. The building is now the pub's kitchen. In the 1970s, the pub was owned by Whitbread. 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. In the 1970s, the pub was home to the Kennet Folk Club.
At the rear of the pub is the village lock-up. Built out of red brick, the small single-storey building has a shallow domed roof. The inside of the lock-up measures approximately by , and is enclosed by a studded door with a grille. It was last used in 1865 and its drunk inhabitant burnt himself to death trying to keep warm. The lock-up was designated as a listed buildings listed building in April 1967. On 11 September 2010 the lock-up was opened to the public as part of the Heritage Open Days scheme. Another pub in the parish, The Butt Inn, is located approximately north-east of the village. The pub is named after the archery butts that were located in the fields opposite the pub. The Falcon Inn was on the southern border of the parish. The pub closed in 2009 and was demolished in 2011. The Aldermaston Brewery was established at Aldermaston Wharf in 1770, and was demolished in the 1950s. It was replaced with a cable factory, which was demolished in 1990.
The yard would take on three up-coming 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. The wood yard was featured on A Question of Sport, when cricketer Graham Gooch took part in the programme's "Mystery Guest" round. 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 cricket, the Turbo 333 bat, made from Aldermaston wood, was launched in his honour.
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. The 2008 demonstration was the biggest protest staged by CND in ten years. Until 2005, AWE discharged "pre-treated waste water" into the River Thames at Pangbourne via an pipeline which runs under roads and fields within the parish. A water processing facility was installed on-site in 2006, though the Pangbourne Pipeline remains in situ.
Britain's first roadside petrol station was opened by The AA on the Bath Road near Aldermaston on 2 March 1919. (2025). 9780304353859, Chambers Harrap. ISBN 9780304353859 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, was told by Keyser that it must be "behind a wall and recessed". A hole was cut in the brick wall beside Ford's yard to house the Shell-branded pump. 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, motor oil, and bicycle". There is a number of small businesses in the village, including a florist and the village shop. In the 1970s the hairdressers was a music shop, which was opened by Terry Wogan. Before this it was a cooperative village stores started by Charles Keyser.
There are two in the parish—Calleva Business Park (on the Berkshire/Hampshire border) and Youngs Industrial Estate on Paices Hill. The latter opened in the early 1980s, and is the location of Paices Wood Country Parkland, a wildlife project managed by BBOWT. In 2007 Aldermaston won the Business Category Award in the regional final of the Calor Village of the Year competition. 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". In addition to the business award, the village was announced as the Overall Winner of the "English Country Village of the Year" competition in 2006, as well as category winners in the "Building Community Life", "Business", "Young People" and "ICT" categories.
The village, along with the neighbouring parish of Wasing, holds an annual produce show at The Old Mill. The show, which was previously held behind the Hind's Head pub, hosts produce competitions in approximately 100 classes. In the 1990s, a team of gardeners formed from the produce show entered the Chelsea Flower Show. They won a silver gilt in the Best Courtyard Garden Award in two consecutive years, for gardens named "Calma" and "Time Lords". The parish of Aldermaston forms a group with the local parishes of Wasing and Brimpton. The three share a monthly Parish Magazine featuring stories from churches, organisations, schools, businesses and various miscellany. Since 1957 there has been an annual performance of the York Nativity Play from the 15th century York Mystery Cycle. The play follows a script by E. Martin Browne with christmas carol by William Byrd, Johannes Eccard, and Michael Praetorius. The performances are at the village church in early December, and the actors are local people who have appeared in the play for many years. In 1964, the play was recorded and broadcast by the BBC Home Service under the title of Star Over Aldermaston. One member of the production team was David Shute.
Aldermaston was mentioned in Plum Pie (1966) by P. G. Wodehouse—"Every now and then we march from Aldermaston, protesting like a ton of bricks... And then we sit a good deal." This was a reference to the demonstrations of the CND (the Aldermaston Marches) which took the form of marches from Aldermaston to London (apart from in 1958, when the march went from London to Aldermaston). This was an annual march from 1958 to 1963. Aldermaston was the original location of Glade Festival. The 2007 event was jeopardised by torrential rains and flooding but cautiously went ahead. In 2009, the festival moved from the area and was held near Winchester. Between 2006 and 2017, blues festival "Blues on the Meadow" was held in the village.
[[railway station]] is in Aldermaston Wharf, from the village itself. The station is managed by [[National Rail]] and served by Great Western Railway services between and . The village is south-east of the Kennet and Avon Canal at Aldermaston Wharf, which provides waterway links to London (via the [[Thames]]) and [[Bristol]] (via the River Avon). The village is on the A340 road, and has nearby access to the A4 road and the M4 motorway.
A West Berkshire Council-run bus service, route 44, serves the village and provides a connection with Thatcham and Calcot The 2005 Parish Plan identified a need for a relief road near the village. A report was presented in 2009 evaluating the problems caused by HGV traffic through the village, and described solutions which included support from Newbury MP Richard Benyon. The nearest operating airstrip, Brimpton Airfield, is less than west of the village, within AWE's restricted airspace. RAF Aldermaston ceased to operate as a civilian airport in 1950.
The church features architecture by Edward Doran Webb and stained glass by Charles Eamer Kempe. The Forster Chapel, a lady chapel added to the south face in the 13th century, contains the alabaster church monument of Sir George Forster and his wife Elizabeth which was built in 1530. Evidence suggests that the chapel may originally have been a chantry dedicated to St Nicholas. The roundel windows in the north wall date from the 13th century and are the oldest glass in Berkshire. The bell tower has a Change ringing of eight bells dating from 1681 to 1900. The current organ, which has 16 Organ stop, was installed in 1880. Individuals buried in the churchyard include squires Charles Keyser (1847–1929) and Daniel Burr (–1885), schoolmaster John Stair (c.1745–1820), and Maria Hale (1791–1879).
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