Tilehurst

Tilehurst
Berkshire
Tilehurst Triangle
Location
Grid reference:	SU667736
Location:	51°27’28"N, 1°2’26"W
Data
Population:	14,683  (2001)
Post town:	Reading
Postcode:	RG30, RG31
Dialling code:	0118
Local Government
Council:	Reading, West Berkshire
Parliamentary constituency:	Reading West

Tilehurst is a Berkshire village most of which has become a suburb of Reading. It lies to the west of the centre of Reading, and extends from the River Thames in the north to the A4 road in the south.

The name Tilehurst comes from the Old English "tigel hyrst" meaning "tile wood ". Alternative spellings have included Tygelhurst (13th century), Tyghelhurst (14th century), and Tylehurst (16th century). The present spelling became commonplace in the 18th century.

Churches

St Michael's Church

The parish is split between four churches—those of St Catherine, St George, St Mary Magdalen and St Michael.

• Church of England:
  • St Michael: Partly 13th century
  • St Catherine of Siena: (LKittleheath), built from 1962 to 1964
  • St George
  • St Mary Magdalen
• Evangelical: Bethel United Church
• Methodist: Tilehurst Methodist Church
• United Reformed Church: Tilehurst URC (built on the site of an early-19th century Congregational Chapel)
• Roman Catholic: St Joseph, built 1955–56

St Michael's is a brick church with a square tower. Parts of the building date from the 13th century, replacing an earlier church thought to have been built in 1189. Sir Peter Vanlore is buried in the church's Lady chapel.

Geography

The River Thames near Tilehurst, and Appletree Eyot

Tilehurst stands on a hill to the west of Reading. The land is steep to the west and south of the village; the gradient is smoother north (towards the River Thames) and east (descending towards Reading).

Much of Tilehurst was enclosed common land during the 18th and 19th centuries; as this land was developed with housing the commons were lost. Arthur Newbery Park is a surviving area of common land. Similarly, Prospect Park was enclosed and established before major development of the area was undertaken.

Tilehurst is bordered to the west by wood and farmland, to the north by other settlements (such as Purley on Thames and the river itself), to the east by Reading, and to the south by the Reading to Taunton line, the M4 motorway and the River Kennet.

Tilehurst is centred around Tilehurst Triangle (known locally as "the village"), a pedestrianised area providing shopping, leisure and educational facilities.

History

Tilehurst was first recorded in 1291, when it was listed as a hamlet of Reading. At this time, the settlement was under the ownership of Reading Abbey, where it stayed until the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Tilehurst became an extensive parish, which included the tything of Theale as well as the manors of Tilehurst, Kentwood, Pincents and Beansheaf.

In 1545, after the dissolution of Redaing Abbey, King Henry VIII granted the manor of Tilehurst to Francis Englefield, who held it until his attainder (and forfeiture of the manor) in 1586. The following year, Elizabeth I gave the manor to Henry Forster of Aldermaston and George Fitton. Forster and Fitton possessed the manor until the turn of the century, when Elizabeth sold it to Henry Best and Francis Jackson. Over the space of five years, the manor passed from Best and Jackson to the son of Sir Thomas Crompton, then on to Dutch merchant Peter Vanlore. Vanlore built a manor house on the estate—Calcot Park. Throughout the 17th century the manor passed through the Vanlore family to the Dickenson family, before being purchased in 1687 by the Wilder family of Nunhide (builders of Wilder's Folly) for £1,075. Page and Ditchfield write that in the early 18th century the manor was also owned by the family of John Kendrick, albeit for a short period.

The manor subsequently passed to Benjamin Child, who married Mary Kendrick, heir of the Kendrick family. After Kendrick's death, Childs sold the manor to descendents of John Blagrave in 1759. The Blagrave family built the present-day Calcot House, which—according to one story—was made necessary by Child's eviction. After Child sold the estate to the Blagraves, he was reluctant to leave the house. The Blagraves were forced to remove the building's roof to "flush" him out of the building, thereby requiring a new building to replace the uninhabitable original house. The manor was retained by the Blagrave family until the 1920s, after which it served as the clubhouse for the estate's golf course and was later converted into apartments.

The Tilehurst Water Tower

The manor of Kentwood was owned by Peter Vanlore, before passing through the Kentwood family (taking their name from the manor itself), the Swafield family, the Yate family, the Fettiplace family and the Dunch family. In 1719, the manor was divided between heirs. The manor of Pincents was named after the local Pincent family. Originally from Sulhamstead, the family owned the manor until the end of the 15th century. After this it was owned by the Sambourne family before they sold it to the Windsor family. In 1598 the manor was sold to the Blagrave family; its succession through the family is identical to that of Calcot Park. In the 1920s the manor was sold off and later became a wedding and conference venue. The manor of Beansheaf took its name from a 13th-century Tilehurst family. In 1316 John Beansheaf granted some of the manor's land to John Stonor. While it is not recorded how much was granted, it is likely that Stonor inherited the entire estate as the Beansheaf name did not appear in subsequent records. In 1390, Ralf Stonor gave the manor to William Sutton of Campden and John Frank. Frank later returned his share of the manor to Ralf Stonor, after which the manor was retained by the Stonor family until the end of the 15th century. The manor left the Stonor family when John Stonor died with no heirs. It passed through his sister, Anne, to her husband, Adrian Fortescue. Some of the manor was later reinherited by the Stonors, though the majority was retained by the Fortescues until passing through marriage to the Wentworth family. In 1562 the manor was bought by John Bolney and Ambrose Dormer, after which it was passed into the family of Tanfield Vachell. The manor was inherited by the Blagrave family some time after 1600.

Throughout the 19th century, a number of changes came to Tilehurst. A national school was founded in 1819 to provide education to children not in private schooling. Theale became a separate ecclesiastical parish in 1832, and a separate civil parish in 1894. The Great Western main line was built through Berkshire in 1841; Tilehurst's railway station opened in 1882.

By 1887, the borough boundaries of Reading included parts of Tilehurst. In 1889 a large part of the parish was transferred to Reading, and further areas were transferred to the borough of Reading in 1911.

In the 1920s and 30s, many new houses—particularly semi-detached residences—were built in Tilehurst. This gave the need for improved utilities; electricity arrived in the 1920s (replacing the gas that fuelled the area from 1906) and a new water tower was built in 1932. After Second World War, Tilehurst—like many other settlements—was in need of new housing; from 1950 many houses and estates were built in the area.

In the mid-1960s a prominent Victorian character property, Westwood House with some 5 acres of open grounds was demolished as part of the ever pressing need for new housing. This site was positioned between Westwood Road and Pierce's Hill and had served well as a venue for occasional local social events.

Economy

Until the late 19th century, the majority of working men in Tilehurst were employed in farming or similar agricultural work. The main industry associated with Tilehurst, however, was the manufacture of tiles, from which the village received its name over a thousand years ago. This industry present in the district until recent times; the 1881 census listed a number of men as being employed as brickmen in kilns in the area. Written evidence of brickwork can be traced to the 1600s, but with the peak of production at around 1885. Kilns were established at Grovelands and Kentwood, both to the east of the village, and clay pits were dug on Norcot Hill in an area now known as The Potteries. An overhead cable was used to transport the clay-filled buckets between the pits and the kiln across Norcot Road; this was shown on a 1942 map of the area as an "aerial cable" running from the clay pit in Kentwood to Grovelands works approximately a mile and half away. The cable was also included on the 1940s Ordnance Survey New Popular Edition maps, labelled as an "aerial ropeway". An 1883 Ordnance Survey map of Berkshire shows a number of kilns in the Grovelands area (on the present-day Colliers Way estate) and one in Norcot near the present-day Lawrence Road. The latter was more specifically named in the 1899 Pre-WWII 1:2,500 scale Berkshire map as "Norcot Kiln, Brick and Tile Works". By the 1920s, Tilehurst Potteries had been formally established at Kew Kiln on Kentwood Hill.

By the 1960s, clay business had waned and the pits were closed in 1967.

Big Society

• Tilehurst Horticultural Association, which holds a produce show annually in August.
• The Triangle Players amateur dramatics

Sport

• Cricket: Theale and Tilehurst Cricket Club
• Football:
  • Barton Rovers
  • Tilehurst Panthers
  • Westwood Wanderers

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Tilehurst)

• Tilehurst Parish Council
• Royal Berkshire History: Tilehurst