Despite appearances, Englefield Village has changed considerably over the decades, albeit with appropriate scale and design.
The common theme is long-term investment and renewal to ensure a critical mass of jobs, customers, households and families which, together, enable village services to survive and thrive.
We have been discussing with residents and members of this community how we shape the next chapter of the village’s evolution with a new cycle of carefully managed investment and renewal.
An evolving village
Pubs
There are records of four pubs: The Three Daggers, originally part of the old village, The Crown Inn, which operated in the mid -19th century, The New Inn, North Street which traded for a short time after the Daggers and the Crown had closed and The Thatcher's Arms, from the mid-19th century before becoming a private house in recent years.
Social Club
The Social Club was formerly the Working Men’s Club (1887), a place to keep Estate staff away from the pubs, according to the Rector at the time.
Since the 1980’s the Englefield Social Club had received ongoing support via loans from members and also from the Estate which gave interest free loans, concessionary rents and waived repair costs.
Englefield Garden Centre
In the Victorian period the site was part of the Estate’s kitchen garden, which grew much of the produce for Englefield House.
During the First World War it fell into neglect as many of the gardeners went off to fight, never to return.
During the 1960s most of the old Victorian glasshouses had come to the end of their useful life and were replaced with the aluminium glasshouses still used by the Garden Centre today.
The enterprise was originally run by the Estate, before being leased to Englefield’s head gardener William (Bill) Partridge, who successfully ran Englefield Garden Centre until his retirement. Since 1995 it has been managed by the Affinity Trust.
St Mark’s Church
The church was originally built in the 12th Century and extensively restored and remodelled by Sir George Gilbert Scott in the 1850’s. It remains a busy and thriving parish church with services every Sunday.
Englefield School
This was built in 1863 and extended in 2002. Originally serving just the village, its catchment is now much wider.
Affordable homes
In 1970 the Estate built four affordable homes for the elderly in St Mark’s Close In the 1980’s numbers 6 & 7 The Street were converted into 3 flats to provide more affordable housing in the community.
In 2004 Partridge Gardens was built to provide four affordable new homes for elderly people.
Wickcroft Farm Shop
The farm shop opened in 2003. In 2019 the Cobbs at Englefield Farm Shop opened at Wickcroft Farm, adding a café and extending the range of local produce on sale, creating new jobs and boosting the economy.
Fire Station
Englefield Fire Brigade was formed on 14 June 1894 and a fire station was built to house a new horse-drawn engine with a steam powered pump. The last working job for the engine was in 1940 and since that time, the engine building has been a workshop, parish meeting room and now a children’s nursery.
Englefield Stores and Tea Room
The stores and tea room was once the Post Office which originally opened in 1895 in an annex of the Club Caretaker’s house.
He also became the sub-Postmaster. Local deliveries were made from the Englefield Post Office until the Second World War. By 1968 post office services were moved to the village shop but withdrawn in 2008.
Broadband
Superfast Broadband arrived in the village in 2017 thanks to a partnership with Gigaclear.
“If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.”
The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
(Chronicling the changes in Sicilian life in the 19th century)
