Bushy Wigmore

 

The wood at the junction where the road from Bradfield to Theale crosses the one from Pangbourne to the Bath Road is known as Bushy Wigmore. The name was originally Widemoor Wood and derives from "widemoor", the name apparently given to an area of unenclosed scrub and woodland, and sometimes given as "Widmoor" or "Widmore". In the plan of the Great Field tentatively dated to about 1690 there is a pond (there still is) called "Widmore" Pond shown here.

 

The 1877 Ordnance Survey map gives it the name “Widemoor Wood” but the next edition in 1913 has this altered to “Wigmore Wood”. The reason for this change may be a combination of the local tendency to call it Widmoor Wood and confusion with a local family of builders called Wigmore who lived nearby. A long-established track, originally called Garrett's Lane, led from the Bath Road to a moated house called Garretts on the River Kennet at the edge of the Englefield Meadow. By 1883 this house was known as The Fishery and there is but one other house on Garrett's Lane, called Bath Cottage. In 1851 James Wigmore, a builder, lived in Bath Cottage and his descendants (still builders) continued to do so certainly up to and including the last published census in 1911.  This is probably why the road became known as Wigmore Lane.

 

The cross roads at Bushy Wigmore was a notorious accident blackspot because drivers coming down from Common Hill towards Theale often failed to stop at the junction with the major road. The cross roads was later altered to the staggered form it takes today to prevent this, with something less than total success.