Welford is a rural village 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 ...

West Berkshire West Berkshire is a local government district in Berkshire, England, administered from Newbury by West Berkshire Council. History The district of Newbury was formed on 1 April 1974, as a merger of the borough of Newbury, Bradfield Rural Distric ...

, England occupying both sides of the valley of the

River Lambourn The River Lambourn is a chalk stream in the English county of Berkshire. It rises in the Berkshire Downs near its namesake village of Lambourn and is a tributary of the River Kennet, which is itself a tributary of the River Thames. The river ...

north-west of Newbury and south of

Wantage Wantage () is a historic market town and civil parish in Oxfordshire, England. Although within the boundaries of the historic county of Berkshire, it has been administered as part of the Vale of White Horse district of Oxfordshire since 1974. T ...

. It forms a

strip parish A strip parish is a parish with a narrow, elongated shape, typically formed during the Anglo-Saxon and early medieval period. The shape is influenced by landscape, political and economic factors. Evidence of such parishes can be found throughout E ...

which tapers in the south where it contains the

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...

Halfway Halfway or Half Way may refer to: Places Canada *Halfway, New Brunswick, a community in Durham Parish * Halfway, Ontario, a community in Madawaska Valley Ireland *Halfway, County Cork, a village in the Republic of Ireland United Kingdom * Halfwa ...

. It has

Welford Park Welford may refer to: Places ;Australia *Welford National Park ;England *Welford, Berkshire **RAF Welford **Welford Park *Welford, Northamptonshire **Welford Reservoir **Welford Road Stadium *Welford-on-Avon, Warwickshire Other uses *Welford (su ...

which has annual

snowdrop ''Galanthus'' (from Ancient Greek , (, "milk") + (, "flower")), or snowdrop, is a small genus of approximately 20 species of bulbous perennial herbaceous plants in the family Amaryllidaceae. The plants have two linear leaves and a single sm ...

displays. The

M4 motorway The M4, originally the London-South Wales Motorway, is a motorway in the United Kingdom running from west London to southwest Wales. The English section to the Severn Bridge was constructed between 1961 and 1971; the Welsh element was largely ...

passes through the parish, but has no junctions within it.

RAF Welford Royal Air Force Welford or more simply RAF Welford is an active Royal Air Force station in Berkshire, England. The station is located approximately northwest of Newbury; about west-southwest of London Opened in 1943, it was used during the Se ...

, a munitions depot used by the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...

, is to the north of the village.

Notable buildings

Welford Park house

The history of the

manor Manor may refer to: Land ownership *Manorialism or "manor system", the method of land ownership (or "tenure") in parts of medieval Europe, notably England *Lord of the manor, the owner of an agreed area of land (or "manor") under manorialism *Man ...

is long. It was held by

Abingdon Abbey Abingdon Abbey ( '' " St Mary's Abbey " '' ) was a Benedictine monastery located in the centre of Abingdon-on-Thames beside the River Thames. The abbey was founded c.675 AD in honour of The Virgin Mary. The Domesday Book of 1086 informs ...

for centuries until the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Overlordship was for some decades after in the hands of

the Crown The Crown is the state in all its aspects within the jurisprudence of the Commonwealth realms and their subdivisions (such as the Crown Dependencies, overseas territories, provinces, or states). Legally ill-defined, the term has different ...

, and was attached to the manor of Benham Lovell, while the overlordship of the

vill Vill is a term used in English history to describe the basic rural land unit, roughly comparable to that of a parish, manor, village or tithing. Medieval developments The vill was the smallest territorial and administrative unit—a geographical ...

of Easton Welford was attached to the manor of East Greenwich. Its history included a share held by Thomas Knyvet and within 20 years was sold to Francis Jones in the 1600s. It descended in the same family to the Mason, Archer and Houblon branches. The main vestige is the rebuilt manor house at

, which can be visited for its woodlands and early spring displays of

s.'Parishes: Welford', in A History of the County of Berkshire: Volume 4
ed. William Page and P H Ditchfield (London, 1924), pp. 116-125. Accessed 16 December 2014. It was described in a county history and geography of 1924 as a "large modern red brick building, surrounded by a

medieval deer park In medieval and Early Modern England, Wales and Ireland, a deer park () was an enclosed area containing deer. It was bounded by a ditch and bank with a wooden park pale on top of the bank, or by a stone or brick wall. The ditch was on the ins ...

of . It is the property of the

lord of the manor Lord of the Manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England, referred to the landholder of a rural estate. The lord enjoyed manorial rights (the rights to establish and occupy a residence, known as the manor house and demesne) as well as seig ...

, Col. G. B. Archer-Houblon, but...the residence of Major R. P. Cobbold."

Saint Gregory's church

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 ...

of St Gregory is one of only two existing

round-tower church Round-tower churches are a type of church found mainly in England, mostly in East Anglia; of about 185 surviving examples in the country, 124 are in Norfolk, 38 in Suffolk, six in Essex, three in Sussex and two each in Cambridgeshire and Berkshi ...

es in

Berkshire 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 ...

, the other being St Mary's at

Great Shefford Great Shefford (or West Shefford) is an English village and Civil parishes in England, civil parish on the River Lambourn in the West Berkshire district of Berkshire. The present civil parish includes the historical parish of Little or East She ...

which adjoins the parish to the north-west. The church is a Grade II*

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

Transport

The village was formerly served by

Welford Park railway station Welford Park railway station was a railway station in Welford, Berkshire, UK, on the Lambourn Valley Railway. History The station opened on 2 April 1898. It was rebuilt by the Great Western Railway in 1908, providing a second platform, a sig ...

on the

Lambourn Valley Railway The Lambourn Valley Railway (LVR) was a branch railway line running from the town of Newbury, Berkshire north-west to the village of Lambourn. It was opened in 1898. Fulfilling a local need, it was in financial difficulties throughout its ind ...

, but the line closed to passenger traffic in 1960 and to freight traffic, to and from RAF Welford, in the 1970s. The station site is now a car park for visitors to Welford Park. The village is situated midway between junctions 13 and 14 of the M4.

Demography

References

External links

Website with photos of Welford St. Gregory
a

A History of RAF Welford and Greenham Common
{{authority control Villages in Berkshire Civil parishes in Berkshire West Berkshire District