PodCast

The Swing Riots start in Berkshire at Thatcham in 1830. A small group of labourers tours the local farms collecting others, and up to 300 gather in the churchyard to ask for more work and higher wages. They are met by members of the Select Vestry who offer work but no extra pay.

Around 1820, the last of Thatcham's open fields are enclosed under the Enclosure Award of 1817. The Award is made mainly on the basis that it will lead to better farming practice, but it is one of the main causes of rural unemployment and depopulation.

A mail coach service is introduced in 1784. Edward Fromont of The King's Head is contracted to provide horses for the first Royal Mail coach. The coaches stop at Cooper's Cottage (where Beverley Close is today) and the King's Head and White Hart inns. The mail coach era lasts until the 1840s when the railway takes over, being cheaper and faster.

Around 1720, the Bath Road through Thatcham is turned into a turnpike; tollhouses are built and tolls are charged for use of the road. One of the tollhouses, known as Thatcham Gate, is built near where Wyevale Garden Centre is today. Sadly the toll house was demolished in 1965.

In 1622, the Bishop of Salisbury's court decides that Midgham and Greenham inhabitants have the right to have the bells of their mother church of Thatcham rung for marriages and deaths within the tithings.

In 1800, a mob of 300 to 400 local farm labourers gathers in Thatcham churchyard to protest about lack of work, low wages and high food prices. The vicar and local worthies listen to their complaints and the mob is dispersed peacefully by the Thatcham Volunteer Cavalry Corps with the help of the infantry. This is the first time that the Volunteers are used as a police force.