| Woodley | |
|---|---|
 Shopping precinct, Crockhamwell Road | |
  Woodley Location withinBerkshire | |
| Population | 28,848 (Parish, 2021)[1] 28,025 (Built up area, 2021)[2] |
| OS grid reference | SU7673 |
| • London | 35 mi (56 km) E |
| Civil parish |
|
| Unitary authority | |
| Ceremonial county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | Reading |
| Postcode district | RG5 |
| Dialling code | 0118 |
| Police | Thames Valley |
| Fire | Royal Berkshire |
| Ambulance | South Central |
| UK Parliament | |
| 51°27′11″N0°54′07″W / 51.453°N 0.902°W /51.453; -0.902 | |
Woodley is a town andcivil parish in theBorough of Wokingham, inBerkshire,England. Woodley is 4 miles (6.4 km) east ofReading and adjoined toEarley which is 2 miles (3.2 km) to the west of the town and Woodley is 5 miles (8 km) fromWokingham. Nearby are the villages ofSonning,Twyford,Winnersh,Hurst andCharvil.
The name Woodley is derived fromOld English words meaning "a clearing in the wood".[3]
Woodley was historically part of theancient parish ofSonning.[3] Woodley was not mentioned in theDomesday Book of 1086. The first written record of the name was in the Register ofSaint Osmund, who wasBishop of Salisbury between 1078 and 1099. The document states that St Osmund visited Sonning and says: "Osbertus de Woodleghe holds a dwelling house and yard and is able to pasture his pigs on the Lord of the Manor's woods".[4]
The 1550 Survey of Sonning includes the first modern spelling of the name Woodley.[5] In the west of Woodley, Old Bulmershe Manor once belonged to theAbbey of Reading but was later the home of the Blagrave family[3] and probable birthplace of the 17th-century mathematician,John Blagrave. The adjoining house ofBulmershe Court, otherwise Woodley Lodge, was built in 1777 by James Wheble. Bulmershe (also spelled Bullmarsh) Heath was a marshy area where bulls were pastured. The annual Reading Races were held from 1727 to 1814 on Bulmershe Heath. Horses were entered for the races at The Mitre Tavern in Reading. Owners living in Berkshire, Hampshire, Oxfordshire and Wiltshire could enter horses. The races were advertised in The Reading Mercury newspaper and ran every August. After 1814 they moved to Kings Meadow in Reading. In the 1820 enclosure of lands in Woodley, the two major landowners were James Wheble of Woodley Lodge and Robert Palmer of Holme Park in Sonning. People lost their rights to cut furze for fuel, catch rabbits and pasture their animals on Bulmershe Heath. In compensation, they were given the Poor's Gardens which were allotments on Headley Road.[4]
Woodley Lodge, later known as Bulmershe Court, was bought byHenry Addington, who lived there every summer 1790–1801. He wasSpeaker of the House of Commons and later 1801–1804Prime Minister.[3] He was a friend ofWilliam Pitt the Younger. Addington was the Captain Commandant of Woodley Yeomanry, a volunteer cavalry regiment formed by gentlemen and wealthy farmers who owned horses.King George III reviewed Woodley Yeomanry on Bulmershe Heath in 1799 and 1805. Addington became Viscount Sidmouth in 1805. He and his wife gave land on which the Royal Berkshire Hospital was built. His name is remembered in Addington Gardens and Addington School in Woodley. In theSecond World War the house was used by theUS Army. In the 1960s it was demolished and replaced by a teacher training college that subsequently become part of theUniversity of Reading in 1989. The area was sold in 2013/2014 and is now a new housing estate of houses, flats and a care home.[6]
The 1847 Kelly's Directory of Berkshire described Woodley as " ascattered village and consists principally of farm houses. James Wheble has a neat residence here called Bulmershe Court. There is a market for fat cattle, held at Loddon Bridge every Monday, which is well attended by butchers from Reading and the vicinity". The directory listed the main farmers, public houses and tradesmen. The pubs were The Bull and Chequers at Woodley Green, The Chequers at Bulmershe Heath, The Lands End and The George at Loddon Bridge.[4]
Until the 1930s Woodley was a village of little significance. In 1929, Woodley Aerodrome was opened in a 100-acre (40 ha) field belonging to Sandford Farm.[3] Jack Phillips and Charles Powis started a business The Phillips and Powis School of Flying, offering flying lessons at 12s 6d each.Pauline Gower, later Commander of the Women'sAir Transport Auxiliary, earned her pilot's licence there in September 1930.[7][8] Flight magazine of 10 May 1933 advertised "Learn to Fly for £37 irrespective of the total number of hours taken" at the P and P School of Flying. The short-lived Berks, Bucks and Oxon Flying Club and the Reading Aero Club were also based at the Aerodrome.
In 1932F.G. Miles came to Woodley and Charles Powis agreed "to place at Mr Miles' disposal a newly equipped Aircraft Workshop".[9] F.G. Miles was joined by his wifeBlossom who was a skilled designer and took an active role in the business. In 1936 his brother George joined the company. Phillips left the company in 1932 and Powis in 1937. The first major success for the company was theMiles Hawk aeroplane, a wooden monoplane which sold for £395. Flying was a hobby for the rich, but this was the most affordable civilian plane of the time. Designed by modernist architect Guy Morgan, the Falcon Hotel was built in 1937 to accommodate visitors and serve as a new accommodation for the Reading Aero Club.
The company name was Phillips and Powis until 1943 when it was changed toMiles Aircraft Ltd. Two of the firm's most famous aeroplanes were the Magister and the Master which were used for basic training of RAF pilots. In the years before the war numerous aviators visited Woodley, includingCharles Lindbergh andAmy Johnson;[3]Douglas Bader lost his legs in a flying accident on the airfield in 1931. He was in the RAF and had been forbidden from doing low level stunts because of the danger. He recorded the accident in his log book " Crashed slow-rolling near ground. Bad show".[9] The Reading Mercury reported the eyewitness testimony of Captain R.L. Bateman, who was chief instructor at the Aerodrome "I was in the clubhouse when I heard the machine flying overhead. I looked out and saw that the pilot was about 200 feet above the ground. At the time, his machine was going into a slow roll and I was rather surprised at such a thing with the machine at that height. I do not think that the pilot realised that he was so low. At any rate, as he came off his back he lost height and speed and pancaked into the ground. The engine came away from the machine whilst the machine itself rolled over for some distance. The pilot was extracted within a couple of minutes of his machine touching the ground. We did not know the pilot at Woodley and we have no idea why he came here".[citation needed] Bader was taken to the Royal Berkshire Hospital and operated on by the chief surgeon Mr Joyce. His legs could not be saved and both were amputated. He was fitted with tin legs and had to learn to walk again. Bader became a famous pilot and his story is told in the book and film Reach For The Sky. He was always grateful to the Royal Berkshire Hospital and helped them with fund-raising. In 1956 he returned to Woodley to open The Coronation Hall, the community hall which replaced the old village Hut.
From 1935 a civilian flying school was operated by the Philips and Powis company, where trainees were prepared for service in theRAF.[10] The company won a £2M Air Ministry order for 500 M.9 Master Is on 11 June 1938 and this was Britain's largest order for training aeroplanes at the time and required considerable and urgent expansion of the busy factory later that year. By 1939 Phillips and Powis had 1,000 employees and major extensions to the factory and an impressive new 'art deco' headquarters designed by Guy Morgan were officially opened by Air Minister Sir Kingsley Wood on 27 January 1939. When war broke out that September, the airfield and factory buildings were camouflaged and the grass runways were disguised by false hedges. The nearby 'Eleven Elms' were cut down because it was feared they were a landmark which could identify the Aerodrome. In 1940 the company was awarded a Spitfire repair and service contract and at the height of World War Two there was a 24-hour 7 day working week and 5,000 employees and many dispersed production and storage sites around the local area. The RAF formed No. 10 Flying Instructors' School in 1942 from the former No. 8 Elementary Flying Training School. The aerodrome was bombed three times in 1940 but the damage was minor and there were no deaths.[11]
Around 6,000 civil and military aircraft were built and first flown here from 1933 to 1962 and, in 1939, the Phillips & Powis factory installed Britain's first moving track assembly line for aircraft production, to build theMiles Master advanced training aeroplane. After theSecond World War, Woodley continued to grow, with other industries relocating here fromReading. By early the 1960s the aerodrome was little-used and all flying finally ceased soon after the Handley Page (Reading) Ltd aircraft factory closed in 1962-63. After gravel extraction in the 1960s and 70s, aerodrome was redeveloped for housing and light industry by Adwest Properties Ltd in the 1980s. The Adwest Group and its tenants continued to use many of the former Miles aircraft factory buildings into the 21st century. Today, Woodley's aviation heritage is mainly commemorated by theMuseum of Berkshire Aviation and also many aviation-related road names on the former aerodrome.
There are two tiers of local government covering Woodley, atparish (town) andunitary authority level: Woodley Town Council andWokingham Borough Council. The town council is based at the Oakwood Centre on Headley Road, which was completed in 2004.[12][13]
For national elections, Woodley forms part of theEarley and Woodley constituency.[14]
Woodley historically formed part of atownship called "Woodley and Sandford" within the extensive parish of Sonning.[15] The township took on civil functions under thepoor laws from the 17th century onwards. It therefore also became acivil parish in 1866 when the legal definition of 'parish' was changed to be the areas used for administering the poor laws.[16]
In ecclesiastical terms, a church dedicated toSt John the Evangelist was built in 1873, initially as achapel of ease toSt Andrew's Church, Sonning.[17] St John's was elevated to formally become a parish church in 1881 when a separateecclesiastical parish of Woodley was created.[18]
Elected parish and district councils were established under theLocal Government Act 1894; Woodley and Sandford was given a parish council and included in theWokingham Rural District.[19] The civil parish of Woodley and Sandford includedCharvil until 1970, when it was made a separate parish.[20]
Ahead of the reforms to local government in 1974 brought in by theLocal Government Act 1972,Reading Borough Council campaigned to have Woodley,Earley, and other areas absorbed into the borough of Reading.[21] The government decided to make no change to Reading's boundaries, and placed Woodley in the new Wokingham district instead.[22] As part of the 1974 reforms, parish councils were given the power to declare their parishes to be towns and adopt the style "town council", which Woodley and Sandford Parish Council did that same year.[23] Shortly afterwards, in January 1975, the parish of Woodley and Sandford was renamed just Woodley.[24][25]
WoodleyCongregational church is aGothic Revival building completed in 1834.[26] It became aUnited Reformed Church and is now offices.[3] Church ofSt John the Evangelist was designed byHenry Woodyer,[26] paid for byRobert Palmer ofHolme Park and built in 1873.
Woodley has two secondarycomprehensive schools that have achievedspecialist school status,Waingels College (Mathematics and Computing), andThe Bulmershe School (Sports).Primary schools include ones at Highwood, Beechwood, St Dominic'sRoman Catholic, Rivermead, WoodleyChurch of England, Southlake and Willow Bank.
Woodley has asite of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) just to the east of the town, calledLodge Wood and Sandford Mill[27] The town has threelocal nature reserves, and they are calledAlder Moors,Highwood andLavells Lake.[28][29][30]
Woodley'sfootball team isWoodley United F.C. The club was formed in 1904, though it is thought that a team existed in Woodley in the nineteenth century. In 2009, Woodley Town ran three teams in theReading Football League. The 1st team won the Senior Division in 2008–09 (Step 7 of theFA Football Pyramid System) and the BTC Senior Cup to complete the League and Cup double. It is a FA Charter Standard Development Club. The club runs a youth section, Woodley Town Kestrels, with boys and girls teams from under-7 to under-17 age groups.
Woodley is home to the KingfisherTable Tennis Club, who play in theReading & District League and theBracknell,Wokingham & District League. Kingfisher TTC also participate in the British League. In 2019Maria Tsaptsinos of Kingfisher won theEngland championship title. Southlake Angling Society[31] runs the Southlakefishery near Woodley town centre. It was established in the early 1960s on the former estate lake with which it shares its name. The Society has added Redlands, a local lake inHurst, and a stretch of theRiver Loddon that flows close to the east of Woodley andEarley. There is apark run in Woodford park every Saturday, and a junior park run every Sunday.
Woodley is a location mentioned in the short ghost story "The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance" byM.R. James collected inA Thin Ghost and Others in 1919.
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Media related toWoodley at Wikimedia Commons| Unitary authorities | |
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