Newbury is a civil parish and the principal
town in the west of the county of Berkshire in England. It is situated
on the River Kennet and the Kennet and Avon Canal, and has a town centre
containing many 17th century buildings. Newbury is best known for its
racecourse and the adjoining former airbase at Greenham Common.
There was a Mesolithic settlement at
Newbury. Artefacts were recovered from the Greenham Dairy Farm in 1963,
and the Faraday Road site in 2002.Addition material was found in
excavations along the route of the Newbury Bypass.
Newbury was founded late in the eleventh
century and acquired its name through being new in the sense of
post-dating the Domesday Survey.
Doubt has been cast over the existence of 'Newbury Castle', but the town
did have Royal connections and was visited a number of times by King
John and Henry III while hunting in the area.
Historically, the town's economic foundation was the cloth trade. This
is reflected in the person of the 16th century cloth magnate, Jack
O'Newbury, and the later tale of the Newbury Coat. The latter was the
outcome of a bet as to whether a gentleman's suit could be produced by
the end of the day from wool taken from a sheep's back at the beginning.
Newbury was the site of two Civil War battles, the First Battle of
Newbury (at Wash Common) in 1643 and the Second Battle of Newbury (at
Speen) in 1644. The nearby Donnington Castle was reduced to a ruin in
the aftermath of the second battle.
In 1795, local magistrates, meeting at the Pelican Inn in Speenhamland,
introduced the Speenhamland System which tied parish welfare payments to
the cost of bread.
A large Royal Air Force base was established during the Second World War
at Greenham Common on the edge of the town. In the 1950s, it became home
to US Air Force bomber and tankers, for which it was equipped with the
longest military runway in the United Kingdom. In the 1980s, it became
one of only two bases in the UK equipped with ground-launched
nuclear-armed cruise missiles, causing it to become the site of protests
by up to 40,000 protesters and the establishment of the Greenham Common
Women's Peace Camp. With the end of the Cold War, the base was closed,
the runway was broken up for use as fill material in building the
Newbury bypass, and much of the area restored to heathland.