A Victorian tip in Faraday Road, Newbury threw up many hidden treasures from days gone by
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FARADAY Road runs off the A4 London Road down towards the canal, parallel to the A339. It incorporates the London Road Industrial Estate as well as the row of retail shops along the A4, garages, an old pumping station, the former Newbury Weekly News building and the old football ground. Many of the industrial units and businesses have been built in the last 40 years and prior to that, vast areas were open ground where a popular pastime was digging up old glass bottles and ceramic jars that had been dumped there in Victorian times.
Here follows a history of how the area developed from the 1880s to the 1970s and two avid bottle collectors – Chris Brownell and Roy Young – talk about their memories of digging in Faraday Road.
THE OS map of 1880-81 shows a cricket ground in the area where the former Newbury Weekly News building is now and a large area to the east of today's Faraday Road is marked 'liable to floods'.
In fact, the Berkshire National Mapping Programme recorded three areas of a water meadow system seen as earthworks. Each system seems to be distinct and might have different origins, although they are all geographically close, in an area to the north and south of the river and canal.
The northernmost system, which lay between the London Road and Greenham Lock, includes a sluice and some channels, which were also mapped. Similarly, the second system, south of the Kennet and Avon Canal covers a mapped area of channels diverted from the river. Finally, the southernmost system is within a small rectangle of land lying between the river and the Great Western Railway, in Greenham parish.
It is possible that all of the earthworks were for drainage rather than water meadow use.
A farm is marked to the east of the cricket ground and there are some nursery gardens to the north east where the end of Faraday Road comes out into London Road. By 1899, the farm is named Cooke's Farm and the nursery gardens have gone. A sewage pumping station has been built, probably around 1895, in a meadow north of the farm.
It includes a residential part and a landmark tower over the pump house (above), which can still be seen today.
Watercress beds to the north of the cricket ground have been labelled, as have several areas of allotments. By 1911 the cricket ground has a pavilion and Cooke's Farm has been renamed Greenham Dairy Farm.
The OS map of 1933-34 shows that the areas of allotments have been extended and the watercress beds appear to have returned to marshland. The cricket ground has been relabelled as a general sports ground and the area previously 'liable to floods' isn't labelled that way anymore.
According to the Heritage Gateway site, land to the east of Newbury's Victoria Park appears to have been used for recreational purposes since at least the late 19th century. A cricket ground with seats, perhaps for spectators, is marked on the First Edition Ordnance Survey map and a pavilion was also sited round the ground in at least two locations in the early 20th century.
By 1933-4 other buildings had appeared around the sports ground. The straight southern boundary appears to be a drain into the River Kennet.
By 1967 a large football ground had been erected, with Greenham Dairy Farm to the east of the ground, but other adjacent land was undeveloped.
An OS map of 1967 shows that the sports ground has been extended and has new stands. An abattoir has been built between the dairy farm and the sewage pumping station and an engineering works has been built where the allotments and watercress beds were.
From the 1970s to the end of the 20th century several planning applications were granted for extensions and alterations to Newbury Town Football Club and the ground was rebuilt again further to the south. Associated with this change was the extension of the industrial estate to the north, along Faraday Road. The football ground was nominated as an asset of community value in 2016.
By 1999, according to aerial photographs taken for the council, the industrial estate was fully formed and the football ground appears to have moved south a bit. The dairy and the abattoir seem to have been demolished too.