Blog entries for 2017

Dusnton House as seen in c.1798.

Dunston House

I have been writing, on behalf of Thatcham Historical Society, short articles for local magazines. So here is a copy of another one of the articles: Thatcham has been owned by many notable people although none have had a Manor house or lived in Thatcham, that is until 1722 AD. Thatcham Manor was sold by the […]

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The Kennet and Avon Canal with part of Ham Mills shown. Photograph by Nick Young.

Ham Mill or Mills?

Thatcham once covered a much larger area than it does today (a future post will detail the changing boundary) and until the 20th century Ham Mill was part of Thatcham and NOT Newbury. Ham Mill was once part of a large estate known simply as Ham. One mill stood near where Newbury Manor Hotel is

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St Mary's Church before the restoration

Thatcham: In the beginning

I have been writing articles on behalf of Thatcham Historical Society. Here is a copy of one of the first articles: There have been Palaeolithic, old stone age, axes found in the area but the first settlement dates to about 10,000 years ago during the Mesolithic period, middle stone age. A series of shelters was erected

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Green Dragon

The Green Dragon

History research is rarely straightforward, or easy, with problems and mysteries creeping up all the time and that is one of the delights, trying to solve a mystery, often one that no one else has attempted or yet solved. One of the biggest mysteries I have/had with the pubs research was a place known as

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Barfields book 1901

The name of Thatcham

The name of Thatcham has long been thought to come from a Saxon Chief called Tace who set-up his village, ham, here. Thus creating Tace’s Ham which over the centuries became Thatcham. But is this the case? Similar place-names Before delving into Thatcham, or researching any specific name I typically look to see if there

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The Plough Pub

The Plough

As the Plough goes to auction this week I thought it would be good to do a potted history of the pub. The main, north, part of the building itself dates to the 17th century with other parts added in the 19th century and later. Many I have seen would jump to the conclusion that as the

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Hiking Footwear

Hiking Footwear

I have been planning to write reviews of footwear for a long time. So finally here we are! I will do a round up of some of the ones I have had, sorry some I have not got pictures of and others I have forgotten names. The plan after this is to review each pair

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STM32 Amiga Floppy

STM32 Amiga Floppy

I wrote in my previous post about alternative solutions instead of the Arduino. The set-up worked, sort of. The Arduino Uno was connected to the Amiga floppy drive, it was kicking out an index pulse and control was working. However the data signal when I looked at it on a scope seemed to be odd. It appeared

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Long lost Cold Ash pubs

Many will know of pubs that have disappeared recently in Thatcham and surrounding areas, sadly many though soon forget. See my previous posts for some more info on some of the pubs (click here). I will post more details on all of these pubs, but thought I might share a few that I have discovered that

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Amiga USB Floppy: an update

Amiga USB Floppy: an update

Connect an external Amiga floppy drive, via a Arduino, to a USB port on a Mac. Sounds simple doesn’t it? Before you say yes, take a look at my previous posts, anything but simple. As mentioned previously there are existing projects that claim to be working at reading data including: Amiga Floppy Reader (AFR) by Marco

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