Wash Common
Wash Common is a small suburb to the south of Newbury. It is built on the former Newbury Wash, which was flat open heathland overlooking Newbury, and until the 19th century there was just a small group of houses separated from Newbury by open country. Both places have grown into each other, and the suburb of Wash Common is now contiguous with Newbury. Most housing development has taken place to the west of the Andover road, and some of the area to the east of the road still remains open farmland.
Geography
Wash Common is situated at the far western end of a plateau of sand and gravel which forms part of the Bagshot Formation. The plateau runs on an east–west axis, and its top originally consisted of boggy heath known as the Newbury Wash.[1] The slope is steepest on the Western side, and to the north it overlooks the Kennet Valley, factors in the First Battle of Newbury. Towards the north west the main road climbs up a gentle incline from Newbury, and continues in a South Easterly direction down a rather steeper slope (once called Trundle Hill,[2] a name no longer used) towards Andover. The level plateau on which it is situated continues for several miles to the east of Wash Common, and a mile to the east can be found the site of the former RAF Greenham Common.
History
Wash Common is the location of five
In 1858 an enclosure resolution was passed; W Money, author of "A Popular History of Newbury" published in 1905, describes this act in terms of a land grab, (see chapter XVI): "it is scarcely necessary to add that the householders of Newbury received no compensation when thus deprived of the valuable rights and privileges which had been enjoyed by the commonality of the town for so many centuries, but their inheritance was bestowed on their more favoured neighbours, whose only claim was that they were already possessed, by purchase or otherwise, of land within the boundaries of the borough". The enclosure resolution opened the way for the progressive residential development of Wash Common, which continues to this day.
First Battle of Newbury
Wash Common covers part of the site of the
Population and administration
Wash Common lies within
Today
Wash Common is the home of the 19th-century Falkland
References
- ^ Ordnance Survey, David & Charles ed (1867). Sheet 78.
{{cite book}}:|author=has generic name (help) - ^ Ordnance Survey, David & Charles ed (1867). Sheet 78.
{{cite book}}:|author=has generic name (help) - ^ Money W (1972) [1905]. History of Newbury.
- ^ Higgott T (2001). The Story of Newbury.
- ^ Barratt J (2005). The First Battle of Newbury.
External links
