Chaddleworth has a rich history and the Parish has had a number of allotments allocated to it over the past 200 years. Before the advent of District and County Councils the Parish was responsible for a great many services to the community. One such was the responsibility for the upkeep of roads and rights of way. To this end Chaddleworth had an allotment for road repairs in an area of land measuring 2 roods (equal to 0.5 of an acre) this was situated in Buckham Field on the West Berks Golf Club side of the road.
This land was made available to the Parish for digging out chalk ‘clunch’ which was used to make and repair the ways, roads and lanes in the Parish. This is why we have Sheephouse Way and Botmoor Way which are major routes not Sheephouse Road and Botmoor Road. In a ‘pecking order’ Ways are top (think The Fosse Way), followed by roads and then by lanes this may or may not surprise. In 1908 the allotment was still open and used by ‘roadmenders’. I have a book published in 1902 titled ‘The Roadmender’ that covers in great detail the lot of such an individual that lived in the Parish and devoted his (because they were always men) working life to repairing and maintaining the Parish Roads.
Down on what is now the A338 near to Henley Farm there was a ‘Turnpike’ where tolls were extracted from coaches and travellers and these ‘monies’ were used to pay the Roadmender and furnish the materials to keep the roads in good repair.
George Boxford