The Road Over Common Hill

 

As soon as he took up permanent residence at Englefield after selling Gidea, Richard Benyon started on two projects. One was to create the new deer park in front of Englefield House and the other was to close the road to Bradfield that ran under the Long Gallery. Common to both of these projects was the creation of a new road from the Bath Road to the Bourne bridge, taking in the existing road up Blyth’s Hill.

 

The initial stage seems to have been confined to straightening Blyth's Hill between Parker's Corner and the T-junction with the Beenham Lane. The undated, but probably earlier than 1802, plan shows Blyth's Hill as it originally was with the intended modifications. At the lower end of the hill is a pair of sharp bends, left then right, which were apparently intended to remain. Further up the hill was a sharp dog-leg right and left followed by a junction where it was necessary to turn right to continue up the hill. The course of the road that ran straight on at this point can still be seen in the field on the other side of which it becomes a track through the woods. Approaching the junction with the Beenham Lane was a long curve, also to the right, leading up to the T-junction. Both these bends formed incursions into what would become the new park.

 

The plan shows how these bends were to be removed, to leave a straight run for the wall that now provides to boundary of the park. The plan also shows, in red, a number of houses (now all gone) At least one of these, and some of the land, belonged to Mr Blyth and Richard Benyon wrote to him to apologise for inadvertently running the road over some of his land, mentioning that there was already a track there which the waggoners were in the habit of using when the weather was good anyway.

 

The second plan (left), which is dated 1802, shows Blyth's Hill with these two bends removed and with a new section continuing beyond the Beenham Lane down the northern slope through the Englefield Common Wood (hence Common Hill) to meet the old road coming from Englefield House just before the bridge over the Bourne. The proposed road seems to have run a little to the west of the present road to join the road running from the "roundabout" into the common wood.

 

The plan also shows a (presumably later) addition in pencil showing how the double bend on Blyth’s Hill (the original Parker's Corner, being smoothed to something like its present course. When this was carried out is not known but the route of the old road remains visible to this day.

 

The second stage in completing the new road to Bradfield was to link Parker’s Corner with the Bath Road. The plan of the Great Field accompanying the 1774 agreement to reallocate holdings there shows there was a road then between Parker's Corner to the Pangbourne Turnpike and the new road follows this. After crossing the turnpike the plan above shows the new road running well to the west of Widemoor Common then linking up with Green Lane (the remaining part of the old road between the Bath Road and Englefield, closed since the Turnpike was built). Another pencil addition to the plan shows the road to continue more or less straight at this point to join the Bath Road at a point to the east of the Green Lane junction. Interestingly, there is still today a drop kerb on the edge of the old Bath Road through Theale at about this point, despite there being no gate or gap in the hedge to require it. The enclosure map for the parish of Tilehurst in 1817 actually shows both of these alignments as roads though the plan of the new Pangbourne Road in 1822 shows Green Lane only as a track and not a road. The complete alignment is shown in blue on the image at the right.

 

Whilst this new road provided an acceptable replacement for travellers from the Bath Road it was not so for those coming from Tidmarsh, who would have seen their journey lengthened considerably. The road past the back of Englefield House could not yet be closed therefore and this was not achieved until 1855 when another new road was built: from Chalkpit Farm to Bradfield along the south side of the valley of the River Pang.

Roads