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Author Topic: Permissive path - Purley / Pangbourne AND Access bridges to farms and fields  (Read 17015 times)
Marlburian
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« Reply #45 on: April 04, 2020, 17:39:58 »

... The original plan to reach the Roebuck was to run a terminal loop via Carlisle Road, Clevedon Road and Elsley Road to Oxford Road. This was granted powers too but I believe required road improvements like kerbstones and pavements before they would be run along those roads, things that still don't exist today... The Corporation estate at Rodway Road was built in the early 50's and running the bus up Kentwood hill to a turning circle halfway up near the estate was chosen instead. The turning circle and some traction poles remain on Kentwood Hill, however not only has the high frequency electric service gone but no bus service whatsoever passes this point. I think I was among the last drivers to ever turn a bus in this turning circle, for only a handful of early morning journeys used this terminus when I started at Reading Transport. About 2003/4 I would say was the last time it was used. 

Interesting! The first three roads that you mention are very "residential" and doubtless were in the 1950s. (So would trolley buses have been a boon or nuisance for the residents?)Perhaps Clevedon Road was/is one of the most superior in Tilehurst? (I don't live there!) I imagine that the trolley buses could have got around the tight corner when turning into Carlisle Road from Oxford Road? (Overdown Road was only extended from  the bottom of Kentwood Hill to Carlisle Road, what, 30 years ago.)

I can vaguely recall the bus turning-circle being used. Must go there for another look - quite permissible in terms of time and distance under the present restrictions, and I'm visiting Costcutter at the bottom of the hill more often.
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Reading General
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« Reply #46 on: April 04, 2020, 17:51:40 »



Interesting! The first three roads that you mention are very "residential" and doubtless were in the 1950s. (So would trolley buses have been a boon or nuisance for the residents?)Perhaps Clevedon Road was/is one of the most superior in Tilehurst? (I don't live there!) I imagine that the trolley buses could have got around the tight corner when turning into Carlisle Road from Oxford Road? (Overdown Road was only extended from  the bottom of Kentwood Hill to Carlisle Road, what, 30 years ago.)

I can vaguely recall the bus turning-circle being used. Must go there for another look - quite permissible in terms of time and distance under the present restrictions, and I'm visiting Costcutter at the bottom of the hill more often.
With the residential roads I would probably say that the trolleys were desired pre war and not desired post war by the residents. The story would be the same for Caversham Heights who's desire for public transport was the reason the Corporation first considered trolleybuses.

On Kentwood Hill don't forget to count the traction poles. Some are still street lamps, some are redundant possibly forgotten about. Bear in mind they only served there original purpose for 10 years. Those remaining at the foot of Northumberland Avenue in Whitley managed even less.
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eightonedee
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« Reply #47 on: April 04, 2020, 19:23:17 »

Quote
Hugely off topic but there you go.

Fair comment!

Moderators - is this another thread that needs re-naming/reallocation? Perhaps "Roads (or connections) to Purley-on-Thames" in the relevant area group for Reading to Didcot?

I have though enjoyed it!
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Marlburian
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« Reply #48 on: April 05, 2020, 03:35:11 »

As ever, I shall defer to the Mods, though some of the early content does relate directly to the thread title and current focus is on the Roebuck subway that may or may not have been affected by the railway.

(Mind you, I have been tempted to refer to the re-alignment of the main road in the dip after Lower Basildon, with the original road now serving what used to be the Institute of Land and Amenity Management and several houses. And there are three generations of main road north of Whitchurch in Hampshire, the latest - the bypass - being built over part of the former railway line. But that would be stretching things, so I won't.  Grin)
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« Reply #49 on: April 05, 2020, 07:28:37 »

Now I can sort of get it back on topic with Lower Basildon. A public footpath appears here on early maps running east to west from the church to the area of diverted main road near to the now derelict I.L.A.M. On the Old Maps website, the last appearance of this is a 1960 map. The next available for this area is 1967 where the footpath has disappeared. The interesting thing about this path is that it crossed the four track mainline at a level. Were there any other places between there and London where the public could cross the four tracks on the level, i.e was this the first level crossing on the line travelling west? Is there anywhere else in the country this occurs with a footpath?
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grahame
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« Reply #50 on: April 05, 2020, 08:16:07 »

Quote
Hugely off topic but there you go.

Fair comment!

Moderators - is this another thread that needs re-naming/reallocation? Perhaps "Roads (or connections) to Purley-on-Thames" in the relevant area group for Reading to Didcot?

I have though enjoyed it!

This one is going to be very difficult to untangle!   I've been aware of it as an active thread that's been running itself - delighted with that.  But I don't really know the areas / relationships between the posts and am very nervous at spitting - as I suspect other moderators / admins might be.

I am going to suggest:
a) Retitle the thread to include both/all subject  - each in a few words
b) Edit the lead post to include pointers to the various topics within the thread
c) Add a couple of locked threads saying "post on this subject is at ..." on other relevant boards
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Marlburian
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« Reply #51 on: April 05, 2020, 11:41:41 »

I wouldn't disagree with a) and b). Not so sure about locked threads. On another forum I started one about Coronavirus which reached record proportions, to the extent that mods thought it'd become unwieldy and locked it, starting a continuation one and so discouraging  comments on the last posts in the first one.

However, an update: today, at the crack of dawn, I ventured down to the Roebuck. First I went over the footbridge (resisting the impulse to grip the handrail) and along towards Ferry Cottage. Where the towpath ended there was a brand new fence (with keypad gate) that was a spur off the one erected a few years ago alongside the railway.

... If you look at the old Street View pictures on Google Maps, there's one where the vegetation alongside Oxford Road has been hacked right back. That reveals two gate posts, and what could be a gate, just where I reckon that track would come out. It's roughly halfway between the boundary line and the drive into what was than a bungalow miles back from the road (and has since, with its neighbour, been replaced by a small suburb).

You can't see any further than the rising ground immediately next to the fence, so it may or may not dip down behind that. But nothing on the maps, nor Google Earth's terrain heights, suggests it does - apart from that "subway" label!

Returning to Oxford Road, I crossed to the south side and spotted the two gate posts - actually stone pillars with a very old gate partly covered with undergrowth, almost directly opposite the gateway recently cut in the stone wall. There was a suggestion of a track heading upwards.

Then I walked along the path through Skerritt Wood and noted that the ground there was some 12 feet above the top of the cutting. I wondered if soil from the cutting had been dumped there.

If that path followed the route of Oxford Road before it was diverted, it might well have been deep cut from centuries of use. When the new road was built, this might have been higher than the path, with the landowner insisting that a "subway" be built under it (rather in the manner of those underbridges that we've discussed early in this thread).

You will notice a discrepancy here. Had soil been dumped in what is now Skerritt Wood at the time of the railway construction, the ground would have been relatively level, with no need for a subway!

I've also come across this recent record of rights of way. which shows two little bits of RoW close to the railway line. This morning I went to the end of Hazel Road and looked down the side of the end house. Cars were parked there and at the back was a bit of a hedge; I decided not to go any further. I wondered if these were remnants of the path that went under the railway to near St Mary's Church.

EDIT: Sorry, I can't fix that link to show Purley. You'll have to scroll across to it. The "two little bits of RoW" are on the southern side of the railway and directly south of the marina.
« Last Edit: April 05, 2020, 12:19:35 by Marlburian » Logged
grahame
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« Reply #52 on: April 05, 2020, 12:03:26 »

This one is going to be very difficult to untangle!   I've been aware of it as an active thread that's been running itself - delighted with that.  But I don't really know the areas / relationships between the posts and am very nervous at spitting - as I suspect other moderators / admins might be.

I am going to suggest:
a) Retitle the thread to include both/all subject  - each in a few words
b) Edit the lead post to include pointers to the various topics within the thread
c) Add a couple of locked threads saying "post on this subject is at ..." on other relevant boards

I wouldn't disagree with a) and b). Not so sure about locked threads. On another forum I started one about Coronavirus which reached record proportions, to the extent that mods thought it'd become unwieldy and locked it, starting a continuation one and so discouraging  comments on the last posts in the first one.

To clarify - the original thread to remain open.  The locked threads are to be new ones that do no more than waypost to the original or places within it.  Nothing in those threads worth commenting on  Cheesy

Edit to add ... OK - done - Grahame
« Last Edit: April 05, 2020, 14:37:04 by grahame » Logged

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Marlburian
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« Reply #53 on: April 05, 2020, 13:55:50 »

EDIT: Just remembered that later in the morning I passed under a bridge about 700m north-west of Pangbourne Station off the A329. The spot rejoices in the name of Sot's Hole.  As soon as one has gone under it, one is confronted by steeply-rising ground, up which a narrow public footpath leads. Seems another extravagance. A vehicle can pass under, but then has nowhere to go.

Just looked at some old maps. There seems to have been a building there at one time, so that may have justified the bridge.

Harking back to the very first post in this thread!  I emailed a local historian, author and authority on historic landscape, who replied thus: "The winter before last I catalogued 1000+ historic documents originating from Basildon House. The collection contained a lot about the wayleave for the railway passing through Basildon Estate and the massive bribe paid to get the landowners objection withdrawn. It also contains the conditions imposed on the construction and a house and bridge at Sots Hole is mentioned. Before Pangbourne Hill was re-graded as a 'make work' project the path up the escarpment up the dry valley was an important route ... The documents are in the Berkshire Record Office who also have a copy of my catalogue."
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stuving
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« Reply #54 on: April 05, 2020, 16:26:33 »

As I said, Project Purley has a truly amazing amount of stuff in it. Even allowing for the number of headings leading to files containing no more than an apology for no-one having written the words yet, or even a terse "Text to be supplied". (Shades of Beachcomber's "SIXTY HORSES WEDGED IN A CHIMNEY - The story to fit this sensational headline has not turned up yet.").

So here's a few more; one on the Red Lyon, concluding with some certainty that it stood roughly where the house of Purley Park was built; and one of old maps that shows specifically where that road from the village to the Roebuck went and how it moved around (which also features in the web page on the Village Street). That page also refers to the stairs and "pit" to the south of the railway where the path goes under it to cross the park to the church - features visible on the 1912 6" map.

A word about topography. The railway runs out of Reading on an embankment on the flood plain, and towards Tilehurst station the ground to the south rises up to its level. From there on, that land rises further and faster than the railway does, being originally a terrace with a scarp on its riverward side. (At least, as far as my limited geological understanding goes.) So the railway becomes a narrow extra terrace, more like a ledge cut into the scarp. So it isn't embankment nor cutting, but half in half. Hence the need to dig a pit in the park to get down to the underpass path level.

Then, by the village, the scarp spreads out to a gentler slope and the railway finds itself with higher ground on both sides. Towards Pangbourne the terrace itself ends at the break for the Sul Brook and the Pang, and the scarp curves around to face Sulham Lane. The railway moves across towards the river and now finds itself on a true embankment.

Now, by the Roebuck it is the road that first does that terracing trick - though higher up, almost at the top of the scarp. But there is, at least, a precedent (strictly, is that a postcedent?) for a "subway" reached from a pit dug on the uphill side! Except ... even the old route of the turnpike was back from the top of the scarp there, and couldn't have got close until some distance to the east.

That scarp, presumably wooded as no-one wanted it for any other purpose, shows on the older maps, and it must have dictated the landscaping of the park. Apparently the fully closed parkland ended with a wall just at the foot of the scarp, with the area around the church being enclosed as private but with some access to the church. The old road to the village went down the scarp, then along its foot,and finally across to the village itself, and was closed after the wall was built. If this happened in stages, then maybe that curving line leading to the church rather than to the village was the line of the road, by now just a path, before it was finally cut by the wall at the river end.
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CyclingSid
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« Reply #55 on: April 05, 2020, 18:23:39 »

Might be worth trying to look at the West Berks definitive map of rights of way.
https://gis1.westberks.gov.uk/ApplicationTemplates/OnlineMap/?vln=PUBLIC%20RIGHTS%20OF%20WAY|PUBLIC%20RIGHTS%20OF%20WAY%20INFRASTRUCTURE
Should give you all the detail you need.

Always have trouble finding the Reading equivalent, when the original RoW legislation was enacted county boroughs were excluded. I know the data exists I have it for work.
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Marlburian
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« Reply #56 on: April 05, 2020, 18:50:43 »

...I've also come across this recent record of rights of way. which shows two little bits of RoW close to the railway line. This morning I went to the end of Hazel Road and looked down the side of the end house. Cars were parked there and at the back was a bit of a hedge; I decided not to go any further. I wondered if these were remnants of the path that went under the railway to near St Mary's Church.

EDIT: Sorry, I can't fix that link to show Purley. You'll have to scroll across to it. The "two little bits of RoW" are on the southern side of the railway and directly south of the marina.


Nice map, Sid. I've been wondering where such a map might be. Handy if ever I need to report a problem with a RoW (though West Berkshire's are well maintained, compared with those in Wiltshire).

Your map confirms my "two little bits of RoW", marked as PURL/9/1, the westerly one disappearing into the bridge under the railway, where it ends.

(One problem - a pleasant one - is I'm tempted to scroll to other areas that I know and note other curiosities, such as ... No, I mustn't, otherwise this thread will meander even more.)
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Marlburian
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« Reply #57 on: April 05, 2020, 19:07:07 »

... Always have trouble finding the Reading equivalent, when the original RoW legislation was enacted county boroughs were excluded. I know the data exists I have it for work.

As is the case with the ROW map to which I linked, I can scroll across yours to the Borough of Reading and see RoWs within the borough. And I've just scrolled into Hampshire and to Salisbury Plain, though I can only get as far as the western edge of the Central training area.
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stuving
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« Reply #58 on: April 05, 2020, 20:40:02 »

Might be worth trying to look at the West Berks definitive map of rights of way.
https://gis1.westberks.gov.uk/ApplicationTemplates/OnlineMap/?vln=PUBLIC%20RIGHTS%20OF%20WAY|PUBLIC%20RIGHTS%20OF%20WAY%20INFRASTRUCTURE
Should give you all the detail you need.

Well, I can see two details the map doesn't help with - what ways went where 200 or 250 years ago, and why PURL/9/1 doesn't go anywhere. It's usually considered that a right of way has to go somewhere, and I recall that's explicit in the Scottish law but less so in the English. Is this "pit" (or its remnants) really a sight worth going to see, even if you have to return via the same path?
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CyclingSid
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« Reply #59 on: April 06, 2020, 07:58:38 »

For information, the Reading RoW map can be found at:
https://my.reading.gov.uk/myreading.aspx
under map categories select Boundaries and then Public Rights of Way (I am sure there was some logic in that!).
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