Crockham Heath is a hamlet in

Berkshire, England Berkshire ( ; in the 17th century sometimes spelt phonetically as Barkeshire; abbreviated Berks.) is a historic county in South East England. One of the home counties, Berkshire was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II as the Royal County of Berk ...

. Crockham Heath is part of the

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 ...

Enborne Enborne is a village and civil parish, in West Berkshire, England that bounds to the east, across a road from Newbury. The River Enborne shares its name, although it does not run through the village; rather, it runs through and rises near the ne ...

(where according to the grid ref the majority of the 2011 Census population was included). The settlement lies near to the

A34 road The A34 is a major road in England. It runs from the A33 and M3 at Winchester in Hampshire, to the A6 and A6042 in Salford, close to Manchester City Centre. It forms a large part of the major trunk route from Southampton, via Oxford, to B ...

, and is located approximately south-west of Newbury where administration occurs.

Civil War

Crockham Heath was mentioned as having a part of the

First Battle of Newbury The First Battle of Newbury was a battle of the First English Civil War that was fought on 20 September 1643 between a Royalist army, under the personal command of King Charles, and a Parliamentarian force led by the Earl of Essex. Following ...

during the

English Civil War The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of re ...

in 1648. It was mentioned as one of two unenclosed pieces of land in the battlefield. It was used as an assembly point for a small number of

Royalist A royalist supports a particular monarch as head of state for a particular kingdom, or of a particular dynastic claim. In the abstract, this position is royalism. It is distinct from monarchism, which advocates a monarchical system of governme ...

soldiers and it was claimed that

Prince Rupert Prince Rupert of the Rhine, Duke of Cumberland, (17 December 1619 (O.S.) / 27 December (N.S.) – 29 November 1682 (O.S.)) was an English army officer, admiral, scientist and colonial governor. He first came to prominence as a Royalist cavalr ...

routed the Parliamentary cavalry who had attempted to attack it to disrupt the Royal supply line. However, despite eyewitness accounts talking about a little heath south of Enbourne, the historian Walter Money argued that the heath could not have been Crockham Heath due to the fact it was too small and too low to have supplied an army located on a hill and could have been easily taken. Money argued that it meant Enbourne Heath. Other sources claim that it was the Parliamentarians who had used Crockham Heath with

Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex, KB, PC (; 11 January 1591 – 14 September 1646) was an English Parliamentarian and soldier during the first half of the 17th century. With the start of the Civil War in 1642, he became the first Captain ...

using it to camp the day before the battle though he camped in a nearby house. Some Victorian historians claimed they slept in battle order but there are no contemporary sources that make that claim.

Listed buildings

There are two

Historic England Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked wit ...

listed buildings in Crockham Heath. One is a grade II 18th century farmhouse listed in 1983 and a grade II listed pair of cottages on Church Lane. Soldiers from Crockham Heath who fought during the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

are inscribed on Newbury's War Memorial.

References

{{authority control Hamlets in Berkshire West Berkshire District