Didcot

The Romans attempted to drain the marshland by building the ditch that runs north through what is now known as the Ladygrove area north of the town near Long Wittenham.

Didcot first appears in historical records in the 1200s as Dudcotte, Berkshire. The name is believed to be derived from that of the local Abbot. Didcot was then a sleepy rural Berkshire village with a population of 100 or so, and remained that way for hundreds of years, only occasionally cropping up in records. Parts of the original village still exist in the Lydalls Road area and part of All Saints church dates back to the eleventh century. It was much smaller than several surrounding villages, who are now dwarfed by modern Didcot.

There are a number of major scientific employers nearby including the UKAEA at Culham (and the Joint European Torus (JET) fusion research project), Harwell Laboratory, the CCLRC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and the new Diamond Light Source synchrotron, which is the largest UK-funded scientific facility to be built for over 30 years.

[edit] The railway

1839 saw the arrival of Isambard Kingdom Brunel's Great Western Railway at Didcot, and in 1844 his station followed, which enclosed the track completely in a similar style to Paddington (the original station burnt down in the later part of nineteenth century). The more obvious location for the original line to Bristol would have been the town of Abingdon a little further north, but the landowner, Lord Wantage (Robert James Loyd-Lindsay, Baron Wantage of Lockinge), is reputed to have prevented the railway coming close to the town. This and the junction of the 'Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway' created the conditions for the future growth of Didcot. The station's name also finally fixed the spelling of Didcot.

Didcot - a railway town.

The position of Didcot at the junction of the routes to London, Bristol, Oxford and to Southampton via the Didcot, Newbury and Southampton Railway made the location of strategic importance to military logistics, in particular during the campaign on the Western Front and the build up to D-Day. Although that railway line has closed and the large Army and Royal Air Force ordnance depots that were built to serve these needs have long since disappeared beneath the power station and Milton Park trading estate, there is still an army camp (Vauxhall Barracks) on the edge of town.

After World War II technology changed, with steam locomotives becoming obsolete, and the motor car becoming common. The station was renamed Didcot Parkway in the 1980s and the old GWR provender stores were demolished (the provender pond was kept to maintain the water table) to become a car park so that the station would attract travellers from the surrounding area. The locomotive depot became the Didcot Railway Centre in 1967.

[edit] Power stations

The Power Stations from the Berkshire Downs above Rowstock

The Didcot Power Stations (which are next to each other, and actually in Sutton Courtenay) supply electricity to the National Grid. Country Life magazine voted these the third worst eyesore in Britain, but some locals refer to them as "the Cathedral of the Vale" [of White Horse], a title which really belongs to the parish church at Uffington. The power station cooling towers are visible from up to 30 miles away due to their location, but won an award for reducing visual impact (six towers in two well-separated groups rather than a monolithic 4x2 block). Pulverised fuel ash (PFA) has been pumped to fill disused gravel pits near Radley, but RWE npower as of 2006 controversially intend to fill an established wildlife-rich lake there^{[citation needed]}.

[edit] Current Developments

Some residents can still remember Didcot as a Berkshire village in the 1930s. A change in county boundaries in 1974 moved Didcot into Oxfordshire; it became the largest town in the new South Oxfordshire district, although it is situated right at its edge. Didcot is now home to around 24,500 people, with a new town centre, The Orchard Centre[1]; a large Sainsbury's supermarket, Next, New Look, Argos and many of the 30 shops opened in August 2005. Didcot has been designated as one of the three major growth areas in Oxfordshire with the Ladygrove development set to double the number of dwellings in the town since construction began in the late 1980s to the North and East of the railway line on the former marshland. Originally, the Ladygrove development was planned to be complete by 2001, however, the final section to the East of Abingdon Road only had plans announced in 2006. In anticipation of the completion of the Ladygrove development, a prolonged and contentious planning enquiry decided that a 3200 dwelling[2] development will now be built to the west of the town, partly overlapping the boundary with the Vale of White Horse.

[edit] Schools

The two public secondary schools in Didcot are St Birinus School and Didcot Girls' School. These two single-sex schools join together at sixth form. In September 1997 Didcot Girls school was awarded specialist Language College status, and St. Birinus Technology and Language College status (as of 2006). There is also a Sixth form which utilises both secondary school sites.

[edit] Didcot Town FC

Didcot Town Football Club play at RWE nPower Loop Meadow Stadium, situated on the Ladygrove Estate.

[edit] Skate Park

Didcot has its own skate park, which holds annual skate competitions for local enthusiasts as well as people from outside the town.

[edit] Fishing

In Ladygrove, there is a place where you can fish, and there is also an Angling Centre in Didcot.

[edit] External links

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Didcot

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