Roads Around Englefield
Closing the Turnpike
By 1822 Richard Benyon had removed almost all of the old village houses, including the Three Daggers Inn, from the road leading to Englefield House but the turnpike traffic still used it so in that year he planned a new road to replace part of the turnpike as far as Hogmoor and bypass Englefield village completely. As originally planned this was meant to use part of the existing turnpike from Bostock as far as its junction with the new Common Hill road just south west of Cranemoor Pond but then the new road would run diagonally across the former Great Field to a point on the road from Englefield to Theale where the lodge gates now are (shown as the broken yellow line below) before turning north and running in a straight line to Hogmoor where it crossed the river on a new brick arch just upstream of the existing crossing, perhaps a ford. The existing river crossing was closed and Piper’s Lane diverted to meet the new road just on the Englefield side of the new bridge. The road to Chalkpit Farm was extended back to meet the new road.
This route would have enabled any turnpike toll gate at Bostock to remain in use but a pencil addition to the plan shows the new road meeting the Bath Road where it does today. This was, in fact, the line actually taken from the start for it is shown in 1829 on the enclosure map and would have made a toll gate at Bostock redundant, requiring a new one further along the Bath Road. The toll house at Tidmarsh certainly remained in business because there is a record of £83 being collected in tolls during the year 1832. By the time this plan was drawn the road to North Street had already been rebuilt on a new straight alignment (shown in light blue) and three new pairs of houses, including a new Three Daggers Inn, built along it. As planned, the new road was not quite straight but had a very long curve to the left where it met this road. This left Dunts’s farmhouse a reasonable distance from the road on the North Street side while running closer to the new Three Daggers but a pencil addition to the plan shows this curve taken out and the road running close to the front of the house as it does today, though the house is a later replacement.
Another pencil addition to the plan shows the southern end of the new road no longer to run across the former Great Field but to run in a straight line through Widemoor Common to meet the Bath Road where it does today. Again, the 1829 enclosure map, only four years after the road was built, shows this to have been the line actually built.
Yet another pencil addition shows the 1802 Common Hill from Bradfield being diverted at its junction with the old turnpike and running dead straight to a crossroads with the new Pangbourne Road at Widemoor Wood and join the Bath Road at the junction with Deadman’s Lane, again as it does today. However the 1829 map still shows the two roads to the south so presumably this last alteration was made later and it is not shown here although the road can be seen on the air photograph.
An order made on 6 February 1826 then closed the sections of the old turnpike between Bostock Lane and the road from Theale to Englefield church and from Englefield Street to Hogmoor. The turnpike trustees gave the land formerly occupied by the closed sections of road to Richard Benyon de Beauvoir in exchange for the land taken up by the new road. While the distance by the new road between Bostock and Hogmoor was some 36 poles less, the closure of the old road meant that the distance from Englefield to the Bath Road and from the houses of several Englefield parishioners to the church was considerably greater.
At the Berkshire Summer assizes in 1826 Richard Benyon brought an action for trespass involving destruction of gates and fences on the closed section near Bostock Lane against a man called Welch and one other. The defendants pleaded not guilty on the grounds that the road closure was illegal under the Turnpike Acts because of the increased distances to the church and particularly from Englefield to Tyle Mill (Till Mill at the time) where Welch and other villagers had been accustomed to grind their corn. The judge found in favour of Richard Benyon so the old road was legally closed.