Didcot

Template:GBmap Didcot is a town in Oxfordshire, United Kingdom.

Didcot dates back to the iron age. The settlement was situated on the ridge in the town, and the remainder of the surrounding area was marshland.

The Romans attempted to drain the marshland by building the ditch that runs north through what is now known as the Ladygrove area north of the town near Long Wittenham.

Didcot first appears in historical records in the 1200s as Dudcotte, Berkshire. The name is believed to be derived from that of the local Abbot. Didcot was then a sleepy rural Berkshire village with a population of 100 or so, and remained that way for hundreds of years, only occasionally cropping up in records. Parts of the original village still exist in the Lydalls Road area and part of All Saints church dates back to the eleventh century.

1839 saw the arrival of Isambard Kingdom Brunel's Great Western Railway to Didcot, his station followed in 1844 which enclosed the track completely in a similar style to Paddington (the original station burnt down in the later part of nineteenth century. This and the junction of the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway created the conditions for the future growth of Didcot. The station's name also finally fixed the spelling of Didcot. The more obvious location for the original line to Bristol would have been the town of Abingdon a little further north, but the landowner, Lord Wantage (Robert James Lindsay), is reputed to have prevented the railway coming close to the town.

The position of Didcot at the junction of the routes to London, Bristol, Oxford and to Southampton via the Didcot, Newbury and Southampton Railway made the location of strategic importance to military logistics, in particular during the campaign on the Western Front and the build up to D-Day. Although the large Army and Royal Air Force ordnance depots that were built to serve these needs have long since disappeared beneath the power station and Milton Park trading estate, there is still an army camp (Vauxhall Barracks) on the edge of town.

After World War II technology changed, with steam locomotives becoming obsolete, and the motor car becoming common. The station was renamed Didcot Parkway in the 1980s and the old GWR provender stores were demolished (the provender pond was kept to maintain the water table) to become a car park so that the station would attract travellers from the surrounding area. The locomotive depot became the Didcot Railway Centre in 1967.

A change in the county boundaries also meant that the town moved from Berkshire to Oxfordshire.

A vote was held in the Town and surrounding villages on whether to build a power station. There was strong opposition from Sutton Courtney but the yes vote was carried due to the number of jobs that were created in the area. Building was started on the 2000 MW coal-fired power station for the CEGB during the 1960s, and was completed early in the 1970s at a cost of £104m and up to 2400 workers were employed at peak times. It is located on a 300 acre (1.2 km²) site formerly part of the Ministry of Defence Central Ordnance Depot. The main contractors were GEC Parsons, Babcock and Wilcox, GP Trenthams and John Thompson. The main chimney is 650 ft (198 m) tall with the six cooling towers 325 ft (99 m) each.

There are two power stations in the town that are currently run by NPower and provide power to the National Grid. They are situated next to each other. The Didcot A power station can burn both coal and natural gas. In addition, a small amount of biomass in the form of sawdust is burnt. The second power station, Didcot B, is powered by natural gas and was built with smaller cooling towers. The Didcot A power station was voted Britain's third worst eyesore in 2003. [1] (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3266745.stm)

Didcot is now home to around 24,500 people and is the largest town in the South Oxfordshire District area. It has been designated as one of the three major growth areas in the county with a new town centre under construction and due for completion in early 2005.

External links

• Didcot Town Council Website (http://www.didcot.gov.uk)
• Didcot Railway Centre Website (http://www.didcotrailwaycentre.org.uk)
• The Orchard Centre (http://www.orchardcentre.co.uk)
• Didcot Info (http://www.didcot.info)