Compton is a

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

in the

River Pang The River Pang is a small chalk stream river in the west of the English county of Berkshire, and a tributary of the River Thames. It runs for approximately from its source near the village of Compton to its confluence with the Thames in th ...

valley in the

Berkshire Downs The Berkshire Downs are a range of chalk downland hills in South east England split between the counties of Berkshire and Oxfordshire. They are part of the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The western parts of the downs ...

about south of

Didcot Didcot ( ) is a railway town and civil parish in the ceremonial county of Oxfordshire and the historic county of Berkshire. Didcot is south of Oxford, east of Wantage and north west of Reading. The town is noted for its railway heritage, Di ...

which is buffered from neighbouring settlements by cultivated fields to all sides. The village is in a gently-sloped

dry valley A dry valley may develop on many kinds of permeable rock, such as limestone and chalk, or sandy terrains that do not regularly sustain surface water flow. Such valleys do not hold surface water because it sinks into the permeable bedrock. There ...

and the fledgling Pang seasonally enters from the north west and discharges in the south east and may be joined at the centre of the village by the Roden from the North, when winter bournes rise to fill their channels. Elevations vary from 95 to 155m AOD.

Parish church

The

bell tower A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell tower ...

of the

Church of England parish church A parish church in the Church of England is the church which acts as the religious centre for the people within each Church of England parish (the smallest and most basic Church of England administrative unit; since the 19th century sometimes ca ...

Saint Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother of ...

and

Saint Nicholas Saint Nicholas of Myra, ; la, Sanctus Nicolaus (traditionally 15 March 270 – 6 December 343), also known as Nicholas of Bari, was an early Christian bishop of Greeks, Greek descent from the maritime city of Myra in Asia Minor (; modern-da ...

was built in the 13th centuryPevsner, 1965, page 120 and has

Perpendicular Gothic Perpendicular Gothic (also Perpendicular, Rectilinear, or Third Pointed) architecture was the third and final style of English Gothic architecture developed in the Kingdom of England during the Late Middle Ages, typified by large windows, four-c ...

features that were added in the 15th century.Page & Ditchfield, 1925, pages 15-21 In 1850 the

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

and

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ove ...

were modernised or rebuilt and in 1905 the Gothic Revival architect

John Oldrid Scott John Oldrid Scott (17 July 1841 – 30 May 1913) was a British architect. Biography He was the son of Sir Gilbert Scott (George Gilbert Scott) and his wife Caroline (née Oldrid). His brother George Gilbert Scott Junior and nephew Sir Giles G ...

added the north

aisle An aisle is, in general, a space for walking with rows of non-walking spaces on both sides. Aisles with seating on both sides can be seen in airplanes, certain types of buildings, such as churches, cathedrals, synagogues, meeting halls, parl ...

Transport

Former railway

In 1882 the

Didcot, Newbury and Southampton Railway The Didcot, Newbury and Southampton Railway (DN&SR) was a cross-country railway running north–south between Didcot, Newbury and Winchester. Its promoters intended an independent route to Southampton and envisaged heavy traffic from the Midl ...

was completed through the parish and

Compton railway station Compton railway station was a station on the Didcot, Newbury and Southampton Railway in England. Compton was the largest station between Newbury, Berkshire and Didcot, Oxfordshire, serving the villages of Compton, East Ilsley and Aldworth. ...

was opened.

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

ways withdrew passenger services from the line and closed Compton station in 1962. BR had closed Compton goods yard by 1964. Through freight traffic was withdrawn in 1964 and the line was closed and dismantled during 1967.

Bus service

From 18 February 2013, Compton is served by Newbury and District bus services 6 and 6A from Newbury.

Amenities and economy

The academically successful The Downs School local authority

secondary school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' secondary education, lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) ...

is in Compton. In the 21st century its Science building was built, named The Hubble after American astro-physicist

Edwin Hubble Edwin Powell Hubble (November 20, 1889 – September 28, 1953) was an Americans, American astronomer. He played a crucial role in establishing the fields of extragalactic astronomy and observational cosmology. Hubble proved that many objects ...

. The

Primary School A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary e ...

, Compton

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

Primary School is located on School Road. The School emblem is a

stag Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the red deer, and the fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including the reindeer ...

. The Institute for Animal Health was at Compton. Substantial portions of the

BBC Television BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1927. It produced television programmes from its own studios from 193 ...

series '' Trainer'' were filmed in and around Compton and the next nearest village,

East Ilsley East Ilsley is a village and civil parish in the Berkshire Downs in West Berkshire, north of Newbury. The village is centred immediately east of the A34 dual carriageway which passes the length of the village from north to south. It has the vast ...

. The village is also known as where footballer

Theo Walcott Theo James Walcott (born 16 March 1989) is an English professional footballer who plays as a forward for Southampton and previously for the English national team. Walcott is a product of the Southampton Academy and started his career with ...

grew up as he went to Compton Primary School and The Downs School.

Industry

Despite Compton being a small village, in 2006 it became the founding place of, what is now, a global chemical manufacturing company called Carbosynth. Since 2019, it has merged with a Swiss company called Biosynth AG to form a key global organisation within the

fine chemical In chemistry, fine chemicals are complex, single, pure chemical substances, produced in limited quantities in multipurpose plants by multistep batch chemical or biotechnological processes. They are described by exacting specifications, used f ...

industry and now operates under name Biosynth^®.

Geography

Compton has a site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) just to the south west of the village, called

Ashridge Wood Ashridge Wood is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest south-west of Compton in Berkshire. It is in the North Wessex Downs, which is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The wood is a surviving section of a once larger ancient c ...

Demography

Nearest places

References

Sources

* *

External links

Compton Parish CouncilWest Berkshire Council Parish Plan for Compton
{{authority control Villages in Berkshire West Berkshire District Civil parishes in Berkshire