20 May 2009
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.
19 May 2009
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.
18 May 2009
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 …
17 May 2009
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.
16 May 2009
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.