Cold Ash

The village of Cold Ash is situated at about {{cvt|150|metres}} above sea level, along the top of a ridge, marked by Hermitage Road and The Ridge, which divides the River Pang and River Kennet valleys. Parts of the village to the north and east are within the North Wessex Downs and Cold Ash Quarry is a site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).{{cite web |url=http://magic.defra.gov.uk/MagicMap.aspx?startTopic=Designations&activelayer=sssiIndex&query=HYPERLINK%3D%271000315%27 |title=Magic Map Application |publisher=Magic.defra.gov.uk |access-date=2017-03-06 |archive-date=7 March 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170307123950/http://magic.defra.gov.uk/MagicMap.aspx?startTopic=Designations&activelayer=sssiIndex&query=HYPERLINK%3D'1000315' |url-status=live }}

File:Houses at Bucklebury Alley - geograph.org.uk - 975928.jpg

The name Cold Ash dates from the 16th century and is mentioned in a 1549 deed of settlement from John Winchcombe to his third son, Henry.{{Cite web|url=https://info.westberks.gov.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=35716&p=0|title=Cold Ash and Ashmore Green Village Design Statement|date=2002|website=West Berkshire Council|access-date=September 19, 2019|archive-date=13 July 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200713005432/https://info.westberks.gov.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=35716&p=0|url-status=live}} During the English Civil War, troops camped on Cold Ash Common before taking part in the Second Battle of Newbury.{{Cite web|url=http://www.coldash.org.uk/crbst_24.html|title=Cold Ash and Ashmore Green Pathusers|website=Cold Ash Parish Council|access-date=19 September 2019|archive-date=15 July 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200715031245/http://www.coldash.org.uk/crbst_24.html|url-status=live}} The area was largely unpopulated before 1800 and consisted of moorland, the oldest part of the village is believed to be Bucklebury Alley. By the end of the 19th century, there were four principal landowners in Cold Ash and a large number of small tenanted dairy farms. Cold Ash Convalescent Home and Children's hospital was opened by a nurse, Agnes Maria Bowditch, in her home in Cold Ash in 1886. By 1901, the hospital had expanded to accommodate 20 patients and specialised in respiratory illness. The hospital closed in 1964 and was demolished, the cul-de-sac, Sewell Close, was built in its place.{{Cite web|url=https://berkshireresearch.wordpress.com/2012/09/05/cold-ash-childrens-hospital/|title=Agnes Maria Bowditch & the Cold Ash Children’s Hospital|date=5 September 2012|website=Berkshire Research|access-date=19 September 2019|archive-date=22 May 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210522182936/https://berkshireresearch.wordpress.com/2012/09/05/cold-ash-childrens-hospital/|url-status=live}}

The village was originally part of the parish of Thatcham but separated as an ecclesiastical parish in its own right in 1866, and as a civil parish in 1894.{{Cite web|url=https://berksfhs.org/berkipedia/cold-ash/|title=Cold Ash|website=Berkshire Family History Society|access-date=20 February 2021 |url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210220084945/https://berksfhs.org/berkipedia/cold-ash/|archive-date=20 February 2021}} It is administered by the West Berkshire unitary authority and represented in parliament by the MP for Newbury.

The Church of England parish church of Saint Mark was designed by the architect Charles Beazley and built in 1864–65.{{harvnb|Pevsner|1966|p=117}} It is a brick Gothic Revival building with a polygonal apsidal chancel. The chancel windows have late 13th-century Decorated Gothic style tracery. The stained glass in the east window is by Clayton and Bell and the north and south windows by Charles Eamer Kempe.

St Mark's Church of England primary school was built in 1873 next to the church and remained there for some 100 years until it was rebuilt on the other side of the road. The former school building is now a residential property.

Hill House Home for Girls, for 'waifs and strays', opened on The Ridge in 1886, it was renamed St Mary's Home for Girls in 1893 and was an industrial school for girls aged 7–14 years old. The 1891 census records 30 girls living at the home. The home closed in 1946 and the buildings used as a nursery school until 1980.{{Cite web|url=https://berkshireresearch.wordpress.com/2012/06/29/cold-ash-waifs-and-strays/|title=The Waifs of St Mary’s|date=29 June 2012|website=Berkshire Research|access-date=19 September 2019|archive-date=22 May 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210522182933/https://berkshireresearch.wordpress.com/2012/06/29/cold-ash-waifs-and-strays/|url-status=live}}{{Cite web|url=http://www.hiddenlives.org.uk/cgi-bin/displayrec.pl?searchtext=cold+ash&record=/homes/COLDA01.html|title=Hill House Home For Girls|website=Hidden Lives|access-date=19 September 2019}} The former home is now divided into private residential properties.

Saint Finian's Convent was built in 1906 as the home of Lady Alice Fitzwilliam. In 1912 she invited the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary to her home to start a school for 'poor girls of the Roman Catholic faith'. Before the children arrived in 1915, the convent provided convalescence for forty Belgian soldiers injured on the Western Front. By 1920, the school boarded 15 girls and in the 1920s the convent changed its name to St Gabriel's while the school retained the name of St Finian's. The Catholic architect Wilfred C. Mangan of Preston designed the chapel, which was built in 1934–36. During World War II, the convent provided refuge for evacuees from London and a spiritual centre for US soldiers based at nearby Greenham Common.{{Cite web|url=https://stfiniansprimary.co.uk/westberks/primary/stfinians/arenas/website/web/historyofstfinianscatholicprimaryschool.pdf|title=The History of St Finian’s|website=St Finian's Primary School|access-date=19 September 2019|archive-date=22 May 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210522182850/https://stfiniansprimary.co.uk/westberks/primary/stfinians/arenas/website/web/historyofstfinianscatholicprimaryschool.pdf|url-status=live}} The current St. Finian's Catholic Primary School opened in 1977 and the convent is now the Cold Ash Centre, an adult retreat and conference centre.{{Cite web|url=http://www.coldashcentre.org/about.html|title=About|website=Cold Ash Centre|access-date=19 September 2019|archive-date=20 October 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191020220450/http://www.coldashcentre.org/about.html|url-status=usurped}}

Downe House School, a girls' boarding school, was founded by Olive Willis and Alice Carver in 1907 at Charles Darwin's former home, Down House, in Kent.{{Cite web|url=https://www.downehouse.net/about/our-history/|title=Our History|website=Downe House|access-date=20 September 2019|archive-date=20 September 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190920171354/https://www.downehouse.net/about/our-history/|url-status=live}} The school outgrew its premises and moved to Cold Ash in 1922, taking over The Cloisters which was built by a religious order called the Order of Silence in 1913. St Peter's, a red brick house built in about 1700 and a Grade II listed building, is now part of the school.{{NHLE |num= 1220197 |desc=Downe House School St Peters St Peters Downe House School |date=16 August 1983 |access-date=22 July 2013}} Former pupils of Downe House include the broadcaster Clare Balding, the actress and comedian, Miranda Hart, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and her sister, Pippa Middleton.

File:Cold Ash Post Office - geograph.org.uk - 1005.jpg

In 1925, the Acland Memorial Hall opened. It was built on land donated by Reginald Acland who had worked to provide a recreational facility for the village before his death in 1924.{{Cite web|url=http://aclandmemorialhall.btck.co.uk/History|title=A Brief History of the Acland Memorial Hall|website=The Acland Memorial Hall|access-date=20 September 2019|archive-date=20 September 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190920171357/http://aclandmemorialhall.btck.co.uk/History|url-status=live}} Sir Reginald and his family lived at Thirtover Place which was bought by Girl Guiding Royal Berkshire in 1990 and today provides a range of residential and day activity camps for community groups.{{Cite web|url=http://www.thirtoverplace.org/about|title=About|website=Thirtover Place|access-date=20 September 2019|archive-date=22 May 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210522182908/https://www.thirtoverplace.org/about|url-status=live}}

Cold Ash has a shop, post office and two public houses, the Castle Inn{{Cite web |url=http://www.thecastleatcoldash.co.uk/ |title=The Castle Inn |access-date=22 July 2013 |archive-date=22 July 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130722105123/http://www.thecastleatcoldash.co.uk/ |url-status=dead }} and the Spotted Dog.{{Cite web |url=http://www.spotteddogcoldash.co.uk/ |title=The Spotted Dog |access-date=22 July 2013 |archive-date=21 July 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130721151609/http://www.spotteddogcoldash.co.uk/ |url-status=live }} The village also has a Women's Institute,{{cite web |url=http://www.coldash.org.uk/Cold_Ash/Cold_Ash_WI.html |archive-url=https://archive.today/20121224032236/http://www.coldash.org.uk/Cold_Ash/Cold_Ash_WI.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=2012-12-24 |title=Cold Ash WI |work=Cold Ash Parish |publisher=Cold Ash Parish Council |access-date=22 July 2013}} tennis club and horticultural society. Cold Ash Pre-School is based in the Acland Memorial Hall. The village has a recreation ground with two tennis courts and space for football and cricket.

Cold Ash appears as the main location in the novel The Unseen (2011) by English author Katherine Webb.{{Cite web|url=https://www.fantasticfiction.com/w/katherine-webb/unseen.htm|title=The Unseen|website=fantasyfiction.com|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201024123004/https://www.fantasticfiction.com/w/katherine-webb/unseen.htm|archive-date=24 October 2020|access-date=24 October 2020}}

The conversion of the former pumping station on Fisher's Lane into a family home was featured on Channel 4's The Restoration Man.{{Cite web|url=https://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-restoration-man/on-demand/54292-001|title=The Restoration Man, Pumping Station|website=Channel 4|access-date=20 September 2019|archive-date=20 September 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190920171355/https://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-restoration-man/on-demand/54292-001|url-status=dead}} The episode was first broadcast on 5 January 2017.{{Cite web|url=https://www.newburytoday.co.uk/news/home/20263/cold-ash-s-historic-pumping-station-to-appear-on-tv-tonight-thursday.html|title=Cold Ash's historic pumping station to appear on tv tonight|website=Newbury Today|access-date=20 September 2019|archive-date=20 September 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190920171358/https://www.newburytoday.co.uk/news/home/20263/cold-ash-s-historic-pumping-station-to-appear-on-tv-tonight-thursday.html|url-status=live}}

• Sir Reginald Acland{{Cite web|url=http://www.coldash.org.uk/crbst_24.html|title=Cold Ash History|website=coldash.org.uk|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201024122716/http://www.coldash.org.uk/crbst_24.html|archive-date=24 October 2020|access-date=24 October 2020}} (1856{{ndash}}1924) - barrister and judge
• Gertrude Bacon (1874{{ndash}}1949) - aeronautical pioneer
• John Mackenzie Bacon{{Cite web|url=https://www.newburytoday.co.uk/news/news/9497/cold-ash-inventor-hits-the-heady-heights-of-ballooning-hall-of-fame.html|title=Cold Ash inventor|website=newburytoday.co.uk|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201024122245/https://www.newburytoday.co.uk/news/news/9497/cold-ash-inventor-hits-the-heady-heights-of-ballooning-hall-of-fame.html|archive-date=24 October 2020|access-date=24 October 2020}} (1846{{ndash}}1904) - astronomer, aeronaut and lecturer
• W. R. A. Dawson (1891–1918), British Army officer in the First World War

Grimsbury Castle - an Iron Age hill fort{{Cite book |last=Coleridge |first=Samuel Taylor|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/1231607557 |title=The Ancient Mariner |date=2021 |publisher=Otbebookpublishing |isbn=978-3-96865-613-7 |oclc=1231607557}}{{Cite book |last=Lewis |first=C. S. |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/1012167455 |title=Prince Caspian the return to Narnia |date=1994 |publisher=Royal National Institute of the Blind |oclc=1012167455}}

{{reflist}}

{{refbegin}}

• {{cite book |editor1-last=Ditchfield |editor1-first=P.H. |editor1-link=Peter Ditchfield |editor2-last=Page |editor2-first=W.H. |editor2-link=William Henry Page |series=Victoria County History |title=A History of the County of Berkshire, Volume 3 |year=1923 |pages=311–329 |url= http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=43223 }}
• {{cite book |last=Pevsner |first=Nikolaus |author-link=Nikolaus Pevsner |year=1966 |title=Berkshire |series=The Buildings of England |location=Harmondsworth |publisher=Penguin Books |page=117 }}
• {{cite web |url=http://www.coldash.org.uk/Cold_Ash/The_Parish.html |last=Piper |first=Reg |year=2001 |title=Cold Ash – A Brief History of the Development of the Village |work=Cold Ash Parish |publisher=Cold Ash Parish Council |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://archive.today/20121224015453/http://www.coldash.org.uk/Cold_Ash/The_Parish.html |archive-date=2012-12-24 }}

{{Refend}}

{{Commons category-inline|Cold Ash}}

{{West Berkshire}}

{{authority control}}

Category:Civil parishes in Berkshire

Category:Villages in Berkshire

Category:West Berkshire District

Category:Thatcham