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Rascally Heath
 Rascally Heath or Glorious Pageant?
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Rascally Heath
Rascally Heath or Glorious Pageant?
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Greenham and Crookham Commons, nearly one thousand acres of gravelly heathland near Newbury in Berkshire, have both inspired and appalled.
It is easy to imagine how - in the days before good roads and cars with powerful headlights - the open and trackless spaces of the Commons could have struck fear into the hearts of travellers.
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From Mates Guide to Newbury |
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Early images of the Commons seemed to emphasise the remoteness and wildness of the place, such as this 1906 picture from a local guidebook.
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Greenham from a garden gate |
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Some visitors to the Common were truly appalled by what they saw: in 1830 William Cobbett, the observer of rural life, described Crookham Common as being part of a "rascally heath", a "villainous tract", extending east to west from Hounslow to Marlborough.
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Others saw the Commons through more sympathetic eyes. In a book published in 1909, L.Salmon claimed that there was no better place to watch "the glorious pageant of the sunset…or the gathering storm with its attendant mass of clouds" than Crookham Common.
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Contrast and Continuity -The Commons Through Many Eyes
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Bury's Bank in the early 20th. century |
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Victor Bonham Carter, who spent part of his boyhood at Greenham from 1917 to 1920 described "a mighty wilderness, stretching all the way from Monks Lane in the west to Brimpton in the east, and threaded by a single dust road."
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to the flying of model aircraft in the 1950s and the massive air shows of the 1970s and 1980s.
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"Woodstock" |
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Around the edges of the Commons, where streams have gouged steep-sided gullies clothed with alder, smallholdings grew up; and there were larger houses too, built by wealthy folk attracted by the peace and beauty of the surroundings.
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Holly Tree Cottage |
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The comfortable life of the Victorian magnate in his country house was in stark contrast to that of the cottager – a childhood memory of Brushwood Cottage is of the water which often seeped into the flagstone kitchen, whilst "poor Ma struggled with Primus or oil stove".
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Schools and churches too were built to serve the few inhabitants; Greenham chapel was mentioned in Domesday (1086) and schools at Crookham and Greenham were built in the middle of the 19th Century.
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For cottagers and commoners, with ancient rights to exploit its natural resources, Greenham was a valuable asset; many local people had – and still have – rights, for example to graze cattle, take wood and furze and to extract sand and gravel.
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But for many people, the abiding image of Greenham Common is of the massive airbase of the 1980s and 1990s, with its giant bunkers housing nuclear-tipped cruise missiles and the hundreds of women who kept a permanent vigil for peace around the perimeter fence of the site.
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Welcome to Greenham |
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Despite the many changes across the centuries, the essential landscape has stayed the same; with the closure of the airbase and the opening of the Commons once again, Greenham enters the 21st century as one of Southern England's most fascinating open spaces.
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Find out more about Greenham and Crookham Commons past and present by selecting the from Themes Index on this page.
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Butterfly transect |
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William Cobbett, the observer of rural life, wrote in 1830: “Here on my way I got upon Crookham Common again, which is a continuation of that wretched country about Oakingham (Wokingham). From Highclere I looked one day over the flat towards Marlborough and there saw some such rascally heaths, so this villainous tract extends from east to west, with more or less exceptions from Hounslow”.
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(Ed.) Woodcock, G. Harmondsworth: Penguin English Library, London, 1973
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George Druce, the botanist, writing in 1897 referred to : “the rich deep green of the alder gullies (and) the bluish shades which marked the distant view”.
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The lonely road across Greenham |
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“L.S.” described Crookham Common thus in his book on Berkshire; “There are many commons in Berkshire, each one differing from the others: each of them beautiful, so beautiful that it is difficult to decide to which one to give the palm. Acknowledging this, therefore, I will not say the most beautiful of them all is Crookham, but that it is one of the most beautiful. It lies parallel with the great Bath road, to the south of it.
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Cutting right through the middle, stretches a perfectly straight road, so straight that you can almost see the whole of its four miles. And from nowhere else, surely, can the glorious pageant of the sunset better be watched, or the gathering storm with its attendant mass of clouds.
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Gorse and heather at Greenham |
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Newbury golf course, 1923 |
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Colour is a distinctive feature of Crookham Common: golden furze, purple heather; here and there the scarlet of a golf coat dotted about over the links.
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Some uncommon species of bramble are to be found; of blackberries in the autumn there is a rare harvest.
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You may be crossing the common towards evening. Away, in the distance lies ridge upon ridge of woods and hills bathed in a billowy mist of pearl and ever changing gradations of grey. The outlines of the hills are soft but distinct. Now and then a little amber feather of vapour floats across the sky. Patches of yellow lichen cover the ground at intervals, gleaming absolutely golden under the evening sun.
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Watercolour of Greenham |
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A faint almond odour coming from the furze bushes growing everywhere in thick and ragged masses fills the air. Towards the south, in the middle distance, the ground is more undulating, falling away even into a deep dip, so that the tops of trees growing at the bottom of the hollow appear on a level with the gorse bushes upon its edge. Blue smoke curling up from a scarcely visible chimney proclaims a human dwelling. Now, that wonderful moment is at hand when Nature seems to pause before the day sinks into the arms of night – the moment of mysterious hush and silence at sun set.”
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“L.S.” “Untravelled Berkshire” Sampson, Low, Marston and Company, London, 1909
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Norman Foster, born at Crookham Common in 1920 and resident of Greenham Common for twenty years, writing of Greenham Common in 1988: “ Odd corners remain untouched, true, but even in these there has been significant change. Nature, no longer held in check by the deliberate fires (as I believe) which swept the commons in the twenties and thirties, has gradually introduced a new kind of flora. The much predominating gorse and heather is much reduced and cheek by jowl with the ever present silver birch there is now a new variety of shrubby trees”.
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Here was my Heart |
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Foster, Norman “Here Was My Heart” Merlin Books Ltd. Braunton, 1988.
ISBN 0 86303 393-8
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Mate’s Illustrated Guide to Newbury, 1906
…On this land, whose agricultural value failed to excite the cupidity of our ancestors, the naturalist may roam at will in the pursuit of that particular branch of Natural History to which he is inclined and will find considerable variety of entertainment in the way of flowers, insects etc. on the gravelly heather-covered tops, boggy valleys or gullies, or the borders shaded by the woods…
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The wooded margins of Greenham |
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Victor Bonham-Carter"
…the Common itself was all one: a blanket of gorse and bracken, bramble and heath, woven over a bottom of moss and padded turf, laced with wild flowers and mazed with sheep tracks…stark spinneys marked smallholdings wrenched by squatters out of the waste…"
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Bonham-Carter, V. “What Countryman, Sir?”, B-C Press. Privately published, 1997.
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