Brimpton Common

Brimpton Common
Berkshire
Brimpton Common Road
Location
Grid reference:	SU568631
Location:	51°21’52"N, 1°11’4"W
Data
Postcode:	RG7
Dialling code:	0118 981 5006
Local Government
Council:	West Berkshire

Brimpton Common is a village in Berkshire, and part of Brimpton Parish, which is within the Benefice of Aldermaston and Woolhampton in the Diocese of Oxford. Brimpton is a little to the northwest. Tadley is uncomfortably close to the east of Brimpton Common.

It has a population of just under 150. The majority of the housing stock is detached with generous size plots. There is a mixture of late 19th century estate and farm-workers' homes (some terraced or semi-detached), plus a post-war ribbon development of larger homes along Brimpton Lane, The Byway and Kingsclere Road.

History

Brimpton Common is the most westerly of a series of former mediæval hamlets bearing the name of "Common" found to the south of three rivers between Newbury and Reading: the River Enborne, River Kennet and River Thames. The other villages of the group are Tadley Common, Silchester Common, Mortimer Common, Wokefield Common and Burghfield Common.

Business

There are no shops in Brimpton Common, but the local employment includes: AWE Blacknest, a major centre for international seismological research; Lakeside Garden Centre, The Pineapple Public House plus a few small businesses surrounding AWE Blacknest.

The Pineapple is 900 years old and the establishment is mentioned in the Domesday Book, if not by that name. It was frequently used by shepherds and drovers as an overnight stop. The name is derived from the pine forest that once surrounded the area, a pine apple being a local name for a pine cone. The furniture inside the pub is noteworthy. It was made by a local craftsman using only a chainsaw and chisel and carved from the last of the English elm. For many years up to the 1990s its local worthies included “Cowboy Roy” (who lived in a wild-west mock-up in nearby Haughurst Hill) and Gerry the Poacher, and their portraits once hung on either side of the fireplace in the public bar.

Fame and infamy

Though this is a small place, it has had some notable residents beyond Cowboy Roy and Gerry the Poacher:

• Ruth Ellis: the last woman to be hanged in the United Kingdom, who grew up in Brimpton Common, just along the road from The Pineapple, and attended Brimpton Primary School. Her family moved to London when she was 15 years old.
• Victor Gollancz, the left-wing publisher owned Lane End in the 1940s and for a number of years it subsequently became the weekend retreat of the then Minister of Health Aneurin Bevan.
• Ron Goodwin, British composer and conductor, lived at Blacknest Cottage, Brimpton Common, Berkshire, where he died on 8 January 2003, aged 77.

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Brimpton Common)