Burnt Hill
| Burnt Hill | |
| Berkshire | |
|---|---|
 Burnt Hill Methodist Chapel | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SU566743 |
| Location: | 51°27’55"N, 1°11’7"W |
| Data | |
| Postcode: | RG18 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | West Berkshire |
Burnt Hill is a hamlet in Berkshire, to be found just north of the M4 motorway near Yattendon, in whose parish it falls. It is amongst the Berkshire Downs, and within the North Wessex Downs ‘Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty’.
The village appears to derive its name from the many brickworks which once operated here.
Burnt Hill is surrounded by fields of the Yattendon Estate, many of Christmas trees, for which the estate is well known and Burnt Hill Common of mixed woodland.
During the Second World War a convoy camp was stationed at Burnt Hill Common and concrete foundations of many of the building can still be found in amongst the trees.
History
There were several brick works in the area in the 18th and 19th centuries and Burnt Hill probably takes its name from the glow in the night sky from the firing of bricks. In 1703 one Isaac Jeram is recorded as working in bricks at Burnt Hill.[1]
By 1830 in reaction to the introduction of mechanisation to agriculture the southern counties erupted in what became known as the Swing Riots. Disturbances started in nearby Yattendon and on 21 November a hard core of rioters met at the Axe and Compass in Burnt Hill. After a night at the pub they acquired a sledge hammer and a horn and at first light set off to local farms to extort money and smash threshing machines, later returning to the Axe and Compass before setting off again at nightfall to other farms in the area. By the early hours of 24 November the troops arrived and arrested eleven of the rioters although none was eventually charged.[2]
At the time of the 1851 religious census, the Primitive Methodists were holding Sunday services in a cottage at Burnt Hill, which was not used exclusively for religious worship. It attracted a congregation of forty. The census return for that Sunday was signed by a local preacher, George Merritt, who lived in Burnt Hill and was an agricultural labourer.[3]
In 1864 the Methodist chapel was built and named Zion. It contains a portrait of the well-known and widely influential Primitive Methodist minister, Isaac Nullis, born nearby at Ashampstead in 1828. Zion is still in use as a Methodist chapel two Sundays a month.
About the village
Ashampstead and Burnt Hill Commons are together 198 acres of mixed woodland. Until the mid 13th century the Commons were pasture woodland. Subsequently they were enclosed to form a deer park with a substantial bank and inner ditch that can still be traced for over 3 miles.[4]
There are some notable buildings in Burnt Hill including the Methodist Chapel 1864 which is still in use, Burnt Hill House, Burnt Hill Cottage, Wistaria Cottage (now very much extended), Sloe Pightle.
The former village pub was named the Axe and Compass, but later renamed Nut & Bolt, reputedly after the licensees of the time, John and Val Bolton.[5] ) It is now a private house, called 'Nut & Bolt House'. Nut & Bolt House has two dated bricks in its front facade circa 1834 and 1873 and was a public house from at least 1847,[6] and probably a butcher too, when it was licensed to a William Larkcom, by 1915 it was still in the Larkcom family having been taken over by William’s daughter Elizabeth.[7]
References
- ↑ In the Valley of the Pang, Dick Greenaway and Dorcas Ward
- ↑ Basildon, Berkshire An Illustrated History, Clive Williams
- ↑ http://www.myprimitivemethodists.org.uk/page_id__440_path__0p9p72p.aspx
- ↑ In the Valley of the Pang, Dick Greenaway and Dorcas Ward
- ↑ Pub Names of Britain, Leslie Dunkling and Gordon Wright
- ↑ Post Office Directory
- ↑ Kelly’s Directory 1915
