The village is finally by-passed

 

Although the new road over Common Hill in 1802 had provided an alternative route for travellers from the west going to Bradfield, for those coming from Tidmarsh the shorter route was still through Englefield, past Englefield House and through the Old Deer Park. Just before his death in 1854 Richard Benyon de Beauvoir succeeded in gaining agreement for the new road (appropriately called New Road, though often locally called Chalkpit Road today) from the chalkpit, providing a better route from Tidmarsh to Bradfield, and he was thus able finally to close the road past his home.

 

In fact, by 1844 the road had already been extended from the chalkpit as far as Lone Barn where it turned 90 degrees to the left and ran over the crest and on to cross the Bourne, after which it turned sharp right and ran along the edge of the old Deer Park to join Common Hill.

 

The stretch of Beenham Lane  from the junction with the old Bradfield Road to the top of Common Hill had already disappeared from the 1829 enclosure map, though it is still shown as a track on the 1883 OS map.

 

The length of road from the 1825 Pangbourne Road to Englefield House then became the private drive to Englefield House except that a right of public passage was retained over the length between Appleton’s Corner and the southwest corner of the churchyard, to allow access to the church. This road was also realigned onto its present course, initially following the coach road to Englefield House but then taking a course between that and the old road as far as Appleton's Corner.

 

In 1862, Richard Fellows Benyon, built the gate screen and the two lodges that stand at the junction with the Tidmarsh Road today to commemorate his marriage to Elizabeth Clutterbuck in 1858. Nowadays the public are allowed to use the road as a permissive footpath and a pedestrian gate has been placed to one side of the main gates. This is an improvement on the situation formerly, when villagers wanting to use the bus stop here when the gates were closed would have to climb over the wall at the side of the northern lodge.

 

At some time before 1844 Common Hill was realigned to its present course and the road that runs into the common wood closed. Although there is no longer any connection to Common Hill the remainder of the road through the wood remains.

 

Ridgeway Lane, running from the junction of Lambdens Hill and the Bath Road across to the junction with Sulhamstead Road, is not shown the enclosure maps of Sulhamstead (1811) or Ufton (1805), through which parishes it passed but the remaining stretch to Parker's Corner is now, with the former Sulhamstead Lane, called Bostock Lane.

 

The map of 1844 shows yet another routing for Common Hill at the Theale end. Instead of the fork south of Widemoor Common and two roads leading to the Bath Road it continues straight to cross the Pangbourne Road at the Bushy Wigmore crossroads but then a little further on turns right to meet the Bath Road to the west of Deadman's Lane. Before 1883 the road was realigned to meet the Bath Road at Deaman's Lane. Around the same time the junction at the other end of Deadman's Lane was altered to move the North Street road junction to its present position when the new Agency was built.

 

In the early 20th century a road was built across the Corporation between Parker's Corner and May Ridge Farm, although this remained only a gravel track until well into the second half of the century. The crossroads at Bushy Wigmore was staggered in the late 1960s or early 1970s to help prevent the accidents that used to happen there (they still do, though). The road from part-way up Blyth's Hill linking up with Beenham Lane has also been closed, although it remained as a farm track into the second half of the 20th century and is still there beyond the field to the west of the modern Common Hill. The part of Beenham Lane between Common Hill and Lambdens Hill remained in use until its closure for gravel extraction in the 1970s and is now a footpath, though diverted at the Lambdens Hill end.

 

The most significant change  in the 20th century was the coming of the M4 when it was extended from Maidenhead Thicket to link up with the western section at Bath. The motorway cut across and blocked Piper's Lane near the Hogmoor Bridge end, although the two separate sections remain. The A340 was diverted slightly to the west to cross over the motorway and the River Pang on a new viaduct, slightly upstream of the old bridge which is still there, overshadowed by the newcomer.

 

Thus by the later 19th century there was no public road running through Englefield and it was able to escape the massive growth in traffic that now runs along the A340 but .

Roads