Second Battle of Passchendaele

The Second Battle of Passchendaele was the culminating attack during the Third Battle of Ypres of the First World War. The battle took place in the Ypres Salient area of the Western Front, in and around the Belgian village of Passchendaele, between 26 October and 10 November 1917. The Canadian Corps relieved the exhausted II Anzac Corps, continuing the advance started with the First Battle of Passchendaele and ultimately capturing the village. Beyond gaining favourable observation positions, the battle was intended to gain drier winter positions on higher ground.

The assault position was directly south of the boundary between the British Fifth and Second Armies. The Canadian Corps was to attack with support of formations from the British Fifth Army to the north and the I Anzac Corps and X Corps to the south. The offensive was executed in a series of attacks with limited objectives, delivered at intervals of three or more days. The dates of the phases were tentatively given as 26 October, 30 October and 6 November with a final smaller action on 10 November. To permit time for divisional reliefs, there was a seven-day pause planned between the second and third stages, during which the Second Army took over the XVIII Corps area, north of the Canadian Corps, from the Fifth Army with the II Corps on 2 November, to assure unity of command over the central part of the attack front.

The attacks captured the German-held high ground along the Passchendaele–Westrozebeke ridge but the campaign ended just short of Westrozebeke. The victory of the Austro-German forces against the Italian Army at the Battle of Caporetto and the forthcoming Battle of Cambrai forced the British into a parallel diversion of resources from the Ypres Salient. II Corps asked for a delay until 19 November to move artillery forward; five British divisions were transferred to Italy and four British divisions on the coast were sent to take over French positions south of the Somme. On 20 November, Haig ended the offensive, except for local attacks in December for better defensive positions.

## Background

In July 1917, Field Marshal Douglas Haig began the Third Battle of Ypres, to break down the resistance of the German 4th Army (General Sixt von Armin) and advance out of the Ypres Salient. The Battle of Messines in June and the Battle of Pilckem Ridge which began on 31 July had captured ground but left the Germans in possession of the most important positions on the Gheluvelt Plateau. Torrential rain in August interrupted the tempo of the British advance and at the Battle of Langemarck the Germans lost ground in the north but again held most of the ground on the Plateau. In view of the failure of the Fifth Army to make much headway in August, Haig decided to transfer more offensive weight towards the south-east, along the southern half of Passchendaele Ridge. The main command was switched from the Fifth Army (General Hubert Gough) to the Second Army (General Herbert Plumer) on the southern flank. Rather than continue with optimistic, semi-open warfare tactics, Plumer planned a series of limited attacks, taking advantage of recent experience. Less ambitious infantry advances at the Battle of Menin Road, Battle of Polygon Wood, Battle of Broodseinde and Battle of Gravenstafel Ridge produced a 4,000 yd (2.3 mi; 3.7 km) advance in two weeks. The 4th Army suffered many casualties, especially at Broodseinde and the German command began preparations for a general withdrawal as a precaution.

In the low ground west of the Passchendaele Ridge, three months of constant shelling had blocked the watercourses that normally provided drainage. When rain began falling on the night of 4 October—which continued intermittently for the next three days—the battlefield once again became a quagmire, making movement extremely difficult. Gough and Plumer told Haig that they favoured ending the campaign on account of the change in the weather and general state of the battlefield but the decision was made to continue the offensive for winter positions on higher ground. The Battle of Poelcappelle (9 October) and First Battle of Passchendaele (12 October) were costly for both sides and failed to achieve any appreciable advance opposite Passchendaele, although they did provide a slightly better starting line for another attack. The four divisions of the Canadian Corps were transferred from the Lens sector to the Ypres Salient to capture Passchendaele. The Canadian Corps relieved the II Anzac Corps on 18 October, along the valley between Gravenstafel Ridge and the high ground at Passchendaele and began planning the offensive. It was virtually the same front as had been occupied by the 1st Canadian Division back in April 1915.

## Prelude

### Plans and preparations

The Canadian Corps operation was to be executed in a series of three attacks, each with limited objectives, delivered at intervals of three or more days. As the Canadian Corps position was directly south of the boundary between British Fifth and Second armies, the Fifth Army would mount subsidiary operations on the left flank of the Canadian Corps, while the I Anzac Corps would advance to protect the right flank and X Corps attack Gheluvelt to improve the local tactical position and as a diversion from the main attack in the north. The Canadian Corps commander, Lieutenant-General Arthur Currie, submitted his provisional operational plan on 16 October and recommended the attack not be executed until 29 October, to move sufficient artillery forward. Haig was anxious to avoid delay, particularly given that he wished to assist the French attack on Malmaison, which was due to start on 23 October. Currie and Plumer, re-examined the situation and finally set the attack for 26 October. The dates for the subsequent phases were tentatively given as 30 October and 6 November.

Extensive preparations were needed before any advance could be made. A number of problems were found with the artillery and positions transferred from the Australians. Of the nominal 250 heavy howitzers, only 227 could be found and 89 were out of action. Of the 306 18-pounder field guns, fewer than half were in action. Lack of mobility caused by the mud left the Australian artillery badly bunched in two main clusters, making easy targets for German gunners. The Australians could not send damaged guns back for repair, because the Provost Marshal had ordered guns off the roads, for fear of blocking traffic. The welcome arrival of the Canadian divisional artillery placed another two-hundred-and-ten 18-pounder}} field guns, 190 howitzers and 26 heavy guns at the disposal of the Canadian Corps.

As early as 17 October, assaulting units were given details about the German defences in their sectors, to begin planning. Intelligence officers and artillery observers worked jointly in observation posts, recording new German fortifications as well as those that had escaped notice, permitting the artillery to bombard them before the offensive. To improve the transport of artillery and supplies, an extensive program of road building was started. Ten field companies, seven Royal Engineer tunnelling companies, four army troop companies and nine infantry battalions were put to work repairing or extending plank roads. From the middle of October until the end of the offensive, a total of 2 mi (3.2 km) of double plank road and more than 4,000 yd (2.3 mi; 3.7 km) of heavy tram line were laid in the Canadian Corps area. Brigadier General Edward Morrison, commander of the artillery, also secured permission to use the roads to send guns back for repair.

Moving troops to the front ahead of the attack was still extremely difficult, as the only means of approaching the front line were narrow boardwalks made of planks, which wound between the shell-holes. Slipping off duckboards could often be deadly with unfortunate soldiers frequently drowning in mud under the weight of their equipment.

> A party of men passing up to the front line found a man bogged to above the knees. The united efforts of four of them with rifles under his armpits made not the slightest impression, and to dig, even if shovels had been available, was impossible for there was no foothold. Duty compelled them to move on up to the line, and when two days later they passed down that way the wretched man was still there; but only his head was visible and he was raving mad.

Because of the exhausting nature of the journey, the leading assault units entered the support line four days before the battle to ensure that the soldiers would be as fresh as possible for the attack.

### Action of 22 October

On 22 October the British 18th (Eastern) Division of XVIII Corps attacked the east end of Poelcappelle. XIV Corps on the left attacked with the 34th Division between the Watervlietbeek and Broenbeek streams and the 35th Division northwards into Houthulst Forest, supported by a regiment of the 1st Division of the French First Army on the left. Poelcappelle was captured but the attack at the junction between the 34th and 35th divisions was repulsed. German counterattacks also pushed back the 35th Division in the centre as the French regiment was capturing all its objectives. Attacking on ground cut up by bombardments, soaked by rain and churned into deep mud, the British had struggled to advance in places and could not move quickly to outflank pillboxes. Troops of the 35th Division reached the edge of Houthulst Forest but were repulsed in several places. German counterattacks after 22 October were costly failures for the same reasons. The 4th Army was prevented from transferring troops away from the Fifth Army or from concentrating its artillery on the Canadians as they prepared to attack Passchendaele Ridge.

### Opposing forces

The Canadian Corps was the principal attacking formation. Immediately to the north, the Canadians were supported by XVIII Corps and after an army boundary shift, II Corps of the Second Army. On the northern flank of the offensive, the advance was supported by diversionary attacks by the British XIV Corps and the 1st and 133rd Divisions of the French First Army. To the south, the right flank of the Canadian advance was supported by I Anzac Corps and on the southern flank of the offensive, X Corps supported the operation with a diversionary attack on Gheluvelt, to secure Tower Hamlets ridge, east of the Bassevillebeek.

Passchendaele Ridge and the area surrounding the village was defended by Gruppe Ypern organized under Guard Corps commander General der Kavallerie Alfred Graf zu Dohna-Schlobitten. Defending German units changed throughout the battle and at various times, consisted of the 4th, 7th, 11th, 11th Bavarian, 27th, 39th, 44th Reserve, 185th, 199th, 238th and 239th Divisions.

## Battle

### First stage

Constant shelling had blocked the Ravebeek stream, creating an impassable swamp directly between the boundary of the 3rd Canadian and the 4th Canadian Divisions, necessitating a two-pronged attack. The 3rd Canadian Division was assigned the wider advance on the left, which included the sharply rising ground of the Bellevue spur. In the more restricted ground south of the Ravebeek stream, the 4th Canadian Division would occupy advanced positions in no man's land before the start of the offensive and take Decline Copse, which straddled the Ypres–Roulers railway. Currie planned the attack with extensive depth in resources. The remaining units of the 8th, 9th and 10th Canadian Infantry Brigades were placed in support, while the 7th, 11th and 12th Canadian Infantry Brigades were held in divisional and corps reserve. The 1st and 2nd Canadian Divisions were in army reserve.

The assault began at 5:40 a.m. on the morning of 26 October. The troops were preceded by a rolling barrage, edging forward in lifts of 50 yd (46 m) every four minutes, permitting the infantry to keep up while negotiating the mud. On the left flank, the 8th Canadian Infantry Brigade captured Wolf Copse and secured its objective line but was ultimately forced to drop a defensive flank 300 yd (270 m) back to link up with the 63rd (Royal Naval) Division, the flanking division of the Fifth Army. In the centre, the 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade found the German barbed wire to be well cut by the preliminary artillery bombardment and within an hour captured the Bellevue pillboxes.

The Germans brought down heavy artillery fire on their abandoned positions and by 9:00 a.m. the brigade's right flank had retreated towards its start line. On the far right, the 10th Canadian Infantry Brigade captured all its objectives as did the 1st Australian Division on its southern flank. As the day wore on, the positions in Decline Copse, a Canadian–Australian objective on the southern flank of the Canadian Corps were gradually abandoned due to German counterattacks and misunderstandings between the Canadian and Australian units.

The 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade's right flank had consolidated its position and by the morning on 27 October, had outposts only 300 yd (270 m) short of its first objective. The 10th Canadian Infantry Brigade captured Decline Copse again on the night of 27 October. The German 238th Division attacked and briefly recaptured the copse the following night, only to be quickly expelled by a Canadian counterattack. When the first stage ended on 28 October, the Canadian Corps had suffered 2,481 casualties. Although the first stage was not completely successful, the operation had placed the Canadians on higher ground and in a good tactical position for the second stage.

North of the Canadians, the supporting attack by XVIII Corps involved the 188th Brigade, 63rd (Royal Naval) Division and a brigade of the 58th (2/1st London) Division. The 188th Brigade quickly captured Varlet Farm and Banff House. The centre of the attack was held up on the road between Bray Farm and the village of Wallemolen and dug-in near Source Trench. As dark fell, Banff House was abandoned and the line reformed at Berks House, leaving Banff House and Source Trench the only part of the first objective not captured. Further north, the 58th Division brigade took three pillboxes at Cameron House, before being stopped at Spider crossroads by German machine-gun fire and exhaustion due to the muddy conditions. From 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. German counterattacks from the north cut off the foremost troops and then advanced from a sunken road between Papa Farm and Whitechapel, which pushed the rest of the brigade back to the start line, where the Germans were also caught in the mud and pushed back by British reinforcements.

On the northern flank of the Fifth Army, XIV Corps conducted diversions employing one brigade each from the 57th (2nd West Lancashire) and the 50th (Northumbrian) divisions. The 57th Division brigade advanced into a marsh, which bogged the attack close to the start line but its troops established advanced posts at Rubens and Memlings Farms 200–350 yd (180–320 m) forward. The right battalion of the 149th Brigade, 50th Division, got to within 80 yd (73 m) of the objective, before fire from German machine-guns and snipers forced a withdrawal to the start line. Further north up to the Ypres–Staden railway, a battalion reached Hill 23, Aden House and Tourenne Crossing but was back at the start line by 4:15 p.m.. The left flank battalion advanced 2,000 yd (1.1 mi; 1.8 km) before machine-gun fire forced it back to the start line. All of the Fifth Army attacks encountered deep mud, which slowed progress to a crawl, caused the barrage to be lost and clogged weapons, in the face of German counterattacks, which forced most attacks back to their start lines.

To the south of the Canadian Corps, in the X Corps area, two brigades of the British 5th and one of the 7th Division conducted diversionary attacks. The 7th Division commander only acquiesced in the attack because it was intended to pin German reserves and stop them moving north against the main attack. The 7th Division attacked Gheluvelt with the 20th and 91st Brigades, while the 5th Division attacked Polderhoek and the Scherriabeek valley, immediately to the north, with the 13th Brigade. The right flank battalion of the 91st Brigade advanced rapidly, protected by a rise which hid them from most of the German machine-gunners nearer to the Menin road. A fortified mound near Hamp Farm was overrun after hand-to-hand fighting. The other two battalions had to advance along the forward slope of the spur running south-east from Tower Hamlets ridge. The area was dominated by machine-guns in a group of pillboxes at Lewis House; the centre battalion could not keep pace with the barrage and it was stopped well short of the pillboxes. Troops began to converge on the area near Lewis House, which caused crowding and gaps in the line. An attempt to outflank the pillboxes failed and the brigade fell back to its assembly positions.

The 20th Brigade attacked astride the Menin Road, the right battalion crossing marshy ground that deepened into waist-high mud towards the Kroomebeek creek. Some troops tried to get round the right flank but machine-gun fire from Lewis House and crossfire from the pillboxes on the Menin road and Swagger Farm ended the attempt. Other parties found the condition of the ground so poor that they moved left, towards the Menin road, only to be pinned down by fire from the pillboxes there but the advance captured one pillbox and advanced to within 100 yd (91 m) of Gheluvelt Church at the west end of the village. The two battalions advancing north of the Menin road managed to keep up with the barrage and reached its junction with the railway tracks just outside Gheluvelt. The battalions bunched and entered Gheluvelt at the same time; some of the troops cleared several pillboxes along Johnson Trench and one party tried to rush Gheluvelt Château. At 10:00 a.m., the Germans counterattacked and the British retreated, many of their weapons being jammed with mud. The remaining troops formed a defensive flank south of the road towards Tower Hamlets and reoccupied the original front line. Once the retreat was complete, British artillery fired a protective barrage and no further German counterattack developed.

The 13th Brigade, 5th Division, attacked with three battalions through the Scherriabeek valley, which were raked by fire from Gheluvelt and found the valley to be impassable. Polderhoek Château was captured but then relinquished because many weapons were clogged by mud and the position made an awkward salient. The Germans reoccupied the château, swept the area to the west with massed machine-gun fire and counterattacked, which pushed the brigade back to the start line. The attacks on the flanks of the Canadian Corps had not gone well. To the south, the X Corps diversion resulted in 3,321 casualties, 2,201 in the 7th Division. In the Fifth Army to the north, XVIII Corps suffered 2,310 casualties, the 63rd Division losing approximately 2,000 casualties in the 188th Brigade and XIV Corps 3,092 casualties. Next day, the 63rd Division retook Banff House and repulsed a German counterattack. Two reserve battalions reinforced the 4th Canadian Division and reached the previous day's objective by 10:00 a.m. Next day patrols from the 3rd Canadian Division scouted Meetchele and Furst Farms. On 29 October, the 1st Australian Division established a post in Decoy Wood.

#### Franco-Belgian operations

The French First Army, with the 1st and 133rd divisions and a division of the Belgian Army planned to occupy the Merckem peninsula in stages, with an attack beginning on the south-east of the peninsula and extending to the north. On 26 October, after an intense bombardment, French troops crossed the lower Steenbeek and advanced into Papegoed (butterfly) Wood, Lucannes Farm and the pillboxes between. The French then forced the Germans from the remaining pillboxes to the west of the woods and forded the Corverbeek, which in places was shoulder-high, soon capturing the pillboxes opposite and occupying the Steenstraate–Dixmude road round Langewaede. In the evening, the Germans rushed the 8th Bavarian Reserve Division into the Merckem peninsula as a reinforcement.

During the night, French engineers, in water up to their armpits, built pontoon bridges over the lower Steenbeek, west of Langewaede. At about 5:00 a.m. on 27 October, French troops on the right bank were joined by those on the left bank of the Steenbeek and a column advanced from the bridgehead at Drei Grachten (Three Canals) to attack the German defences on the causeway to Luyghem. The French on the extreme right, in front of Draaibank, formed a flank guard facing east, near the troops in Papegoed Wood, which also protected the troops moving up from Steenstraate through Langewaede to Dixmude. The fortified villages of Verbrandesmis and Kippe blocked the road further on and north-east of Verbrandesmis near Houthulst Forest, Jesiutengoed Farm near the hamlet of Kloostermolen and the village of Aschhoop to the north, also obstructed an advance.

From Verbrandesmis a road runs north-west, parallel with the lower Steenbeek through Merckem to Luyghem, slightly above the level of the surrounding marshes. Machine-gun nests in the villages commanded the causeway from Drei Grachten; the ground everywhere in the peninsula was soaked and dotted with large numbers of blockhouses and pillboxes. The French artillery destroyed Verbrandesmis and it was quickly captured but the garrisons at Jesiutengoed Farm and Kloostermolen held out for some time, before being forced back to Kippe and Aschhoop. German artillery bombarded the banks of the Steenbeek in front of Merckem and French troops rushed across on pontoon bridges, struggled through the mud to the objectives and then attacked towards Kippe and Luyghem. Kippe and Aschhoop were captured quickly but Luyghem and the causeway from Drei Grachten held out until the afternoon.

The French and Belgian advance on Luyghem began as soon as the causeway was captured, Belgian troops employing flat-bottomed boats to move to the north of the village. The Belgians secured the southern edge of Blanckaart Lake and then attacked Luyghem from the north, taking the German pillboxes and blockhouses systematically. By the morning of 28 October, the French and Belgians had completed the capture of the Merckem peninsula, taken about 300 prisoners and inflicted many casualties on the Germans, who had defended with great determination. The skill of the French artillery had obtained success with few infantry casualties; the Belgians had managed to hide their boats despite German vigilance and row to their objectives through the floods against German artillery and small-arms fire.

### Second stage

The second stage on 30 October was intended to complete the capture of the positions the Canadian Corps had attacked on 26 October and gain a base for the final assault on Passchendaele. The objective (Blue Line) was approximately 600 yd (550 m) east of the objective of the previous stage. The advance was meant to capture the strongly held Crest Farm at the southern flank and in the northern sector, the hamlet of Meetcheele and the Goudberg area near the northern Corps boundary. In the north, the Canadian Corps advance was to link up outside Goudberg at Vapour Farm with the Fifth Army, which would be advancing with the 190th Brigade, 63rd (Royal Naval) Division and the 58th Division either side of the swamped Lekkerboterbeek. In the south, the advance was to link with the I Anzac Corps along the Ypres–Roulers railway line south of Vienna Cottage. The southern flank of the main assault would once again be the responsibility of the 4th Canadian Division, which planned to attack with the 12th Canadian Infantry Brigade. The northern flank remained the responsibility of the 3rd Canadian Division, which would advance with the 7th and 8th Canadian Infantry Brigades.

The night before the attack, a battalion assault by the Canadians captured a particularly troublesome German pillbox on the northern bank of Ravebeek creek, which had held up the 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade during the first stage. The action advanced the southern edge of the 3rd Canadian Division 500 yd (460 m) parallel with the line of the 4th Canadian Division to the south. The main attack began at 5:50 a.m. on 30 October, preceded by a rolling barrage and a preliminary artillery bombardment directed largely at pillboxes. The southern attack quickly captured Crest Farm and Canadian patrols pushed beyond the objective into Passchendaele, which they found the Germans evacuating. By 8:30 a.m., the 4th Canadian Division commander, Major-General David Watson, reported that all objectives between the Ypres–Roulers railway and the Ravebeek creek had been taken. Northwest of Crest Farm, the ground was so badly flooded that consolidation had to be carried out short of the objective.

In the north, the 3rd Canadian Division was again met with exceptional German resistance. The 8th Canadian Infantry Brigade managed to capture Source Farm and later Vapour Farm at the corps boundary, just short of the objective. The brigade had difficulty getting through the swampy ground in the Woodland Plantation, resulting in a division in the line. The 63rd (Royal Naval) Division and the 58th Division troops were caught by German artillery fire at their jumping-off line and made only slight progress, in deep mud, against German machine-gun fire, leaving the Canadian flank open at Source Farm and Vapour Farm. Two Royal Naval companies later advanced through the Canadian sector to capture Source Trench but were only able to reinforce the Canadian outpost at Source Farm and form a defensive flank to Vapour Farm. In the centre, the 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade advanced between Ravebeek creek and the roadway to Meetcheele; one section of the brigade captured its intermediate objective, a pillbox known as Duck Lodge, by 7:00 a.m. To the west of the roadway and Meetcheele, the advance captured Furst Farm, albeit with heavy casualties. Later in the afternoon, the brigade overcame several pillboxes and captured the crossroads at Meetcheele. The Germans held on at a strong position at Graf House along the bank of the Ravebeek creek, producing a salient in the Canadian line between the two Canadian divisions.

The advance appeared to have reached its limit by late afternoon and reports of a large number of Germans concentrating north of Mosselmarkt indicated a possible counterattack. The 3rd Canadian Division (although short of some objectives) was ordered to consolidate and patrol, rather than occupy the Woodland Plantation swamp between the 7th and 8th Canadian Infantry Brigades. There was some question as to whether the positions at Source Farm and Vapour Farm could be maintained without the support of the 63rd (Royal Naval) Division. Currie and Plumer ultimately decided that every effort should be made to hold the line in the hope of not having to retake the positions before the assault on Passchendaele. The night passed without serious counterattack, permitting the Canadians to dig in. By the end of 30 October, the Canadian Corps had suffered 2,321 casualties, consisting of 884 killed, 1,429 wounded and eight taken prisoner. Further north the 63rd (Royal Naval) Division had 3,126 casualties from 26 to 31 October.

### Tactical pause

There was a seven-day pause between the second and third stages for divisional reliefs. The Second Army took over a section of the Fifth Army front adjoining the Canadian Corps, so that the central portion of the assault would have unity of command. On 2 November, Plumer relieved the XVIII Corps of the Fifth Army with II Corps. II Corps would provide the Canadian Corps with artillery support. Immediately north of the Canadian Corps, the 63rd Division was able to close up to the Paddebeek by attacking at night between 1 November and the night of 4/5 November, a method which took more ground than its attacks in October for a loss of 14 killed and 148 wounded.

No rain fell from 3 to 5 November, which aided preparations and reorganization of the troops for the next stage. Hundreds of pack animals were used to move supplies, including gun ammunition. The 1st and 2nd Canadian Divisions moved forward by rail from their reserve area east of Cassel and took over from the 3rd and 4th Canadian Divisions respectively, by the morning of 5 November. South of the Canadian Corps, the I Anzac, IX and VIII Corps were to simulate attacks along a 4 mi (6.4 km) front extending south to Zandvoorde. During the night of 5 November, the assault units moved to their jumping off positions and were ready by 4:00 a.m. on 6 November. The Germans also took advantage of the lull to relieve exhausted units. The 11th Division had arrived from the Champagne sector on 3 November to relieve the 39th Division between the Ypres–Roulers railway and the Mosselmarkt road.

### Third stage

The Corps objectives for 6 November lay along the Green Line, a rough semicircle that ran 1,000 yd (910 m) from Graf House, the centre of the salient in the Canadian line and enclosed Passchendaele and the hamlets of Mosselmarkt and Goudberg to the north-west. The 2nd Canadian Division would send the 6th Canadian Infantry Brigade to attack Passchendaele from the north and a battalion of the 5th Canadian Infantry Brigade to attack from the south. In the 1st Canadian Division sector, the 1st Canadian Infantry Brigade would advance on either side of the Meetcheele–Mosselmarkt road and along the northern corps boundary, one battalion to execute a subsidiary operation against Vine Cottages, a strong-point which the Germans were holding 350 yd (320 m) south-east of Vapour Farm. The third stage began at 6:00 a.m. on 6 November, with a preliminary bombardment under largely clear skies; the German counter-bombardment fell mainly behind the advancing troops. Almost everywhere the attack went well for the Canadians. The 2nd Canadian Division encountered most opposition from pillboxes at the north end of Passchendaele but in less than three hours, the village had been secured. The 1st Canadian Division encountered stiff resistance from the defenders of Vine Cottages but by 8:00 a.m., the 1st Canadian Infantry Brigade had reached and consolidated the Green Line.

### Final attack

A final action to gain a nearby crossroad and the remaining high ground north of the village near Hill 52 was set for 10 November. The road junction was 1,000 yd (910 m) north of Passchendaele along the Westrozebeke road. Hill 52, the highest point on the northern end of the Passchendaele Ridge, was 500 yd (460 m) beyond the crossroads. Possession of the features would permit observation over German positions to the north-east. The 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade was to attack with support from one battalion of the 4th Canadian Infantry Brigade. The Germans had used the lull to move up regiments from the 4th Division and 44th Reserve Division to replace the 11th Division on 9 November. The assault was launched from the Green Line, north and north-east of Mosselmarkt, on the morning of 10 November and made good initial progress, capturing the crossroads, over-running Venture Farm and capturing four 77 mm field guns. North of the Canadian Corps boundary, the supporting advance by the British 1st Division ran into trouble, when a German counterattack got into a gap between the 1st Battalion, South Wales Borderers and the 2nd Battalion, Royal Munster Fusiliers. The Germans engaged the British inner flanks with small-arms fire, causing many casualties and forcing back the survivors. Troops of the 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade filled the gap and threw back a defensive flank along the corps boundary, stopping the German advance. Though Haig had hoped to have the entire Passchendaele–Westrozebeke ridge as a winter position, the line was still short of the village; attempts to reach Westrozebeke in late November and early December also failed.

## Aftermath

### Analysis

On 24 October, The Austro-German 14th Army (General der Infanterie Otto von Below) inflicted a great defeat on the Italian Army at the Battle of Caporetto. In fear that Italy might be put out of the war, the French and British Governments promised to send six divisions each to the Italian Front. The troops were rapidly and efficiently transferred between 10 November and 12 December, due to good administrative preparations made by the French Chief of Staff Ferdinand Foch, who had been sent to Italy in April 1917 to plan for such an emergency. The Third Battle of Ypres came to an unsatisfactory close as a result of the diversion of British forces, with Haig being forced to end his advance just short of Westroosebeke. On 14 November, a gradual relief of the Canadian divisions by VIII Corps began and on 20 November, Currie resumed command along the Lens–Vimy front.

### Casualties

The Fifth Army suffered 14,219 casualties from 26 October to 9 November, Second Army casualties from 26 October to 10 November were 29,454, of which the Canadian Corps suffered 15,654 casualties. In the German Official History (Der Weltkrieg, 1942) the Reichsarchiv historians recorded 20,500 German casualties from 21 to 31 October and 9,500 casualties from 1 to 10 November. From 11 November to 31 December another 15,000 casualties were recorded.

### Subsequent operations

On the night of 24/25 November, two battalions of the 8th Division advanced the line to the ridge crest and a German counterattack on 30 November was a costly failure. VIII Corps and II Corps conducted a larger operation on the night of 1/2 December and the British tried to cross no man's land without artillery support to forestall the German artillery. Because of the moonlight, the infantry had to form up well behind their outpost line, many of the troops got stuck in the mud and some were caught by German machine-gun fire. The slow advance left some troops in the German barrage zone when the German artillery opened fire a minute after the start of the British barrage. The German outpost zone was overrun and the main line of defence breached at one point. After a local truce to recover wounded, a German counterattack forced the 32nd Division back to the start line, with the 8th Division dug-in about 100 yd (91 m) forward on the left and 200 yd (180 m) on the right. More British attacks were easily stopped by the Germans and at 4:10 p.m. a German counterattack was easily repulsed by the British. The attack failed to gain much ground but the German 25th Division had to be relieved on 3 December.

On 3 December, two battalions of the New Zealand Division attacked the Polderhoek Spur to shield the area north of the Reutelbeek stream from German observers at Gheluvelt further south. The attack was made in daylight as a ruse, in the hope that the unusual time would surprise the German defenders, who would be under cover sheltering from the bombardments being fired at the same time each day. The ruse failed, some British artillery-fire dropped short on the New Zealanders, the Germans engaged the attackers with small-arms fire from Polderhoek Spur and Gheluvelt ridge; winds ruined a smoke screen. The New Zealanders suffered many casualties and were forced under cover 150 yd (140 m) short of the first objective; another attempt after dark was cancelled because of the full moon and sight of German reinforcements reaching Polderhoek Château. German counterattacks were repulsed over the next few days and the New Zealanders handed over to troops of IX Corps. The Germans used an observation balloon accurately to direct artillery-fire and on 14 December, the ground was re-captured by a German counterattack.

### Victoria Cross

Nine Victoria Crosses, the highest military decoration for valour awarded to British and Commonwealth forces, were awarded for actions during the battle.

- Acting Captain Christopher O'Kelly of the 52nd (New Ontario) Battalion.
- Sergeant Robert Shankland of the 43rd (Cameron Highlanders of Canada) Battalion.
- Private Thomas William Holmes of the 4th Canadian Mounted Rifles Battalion.
- Private Cecil John Kinross of the 49th (Edmonton) Battalion.
- Sergeant George Mullin of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry.
- Acting Major George Pearkes of the 5th Canadian Mounted Rifles Battalion.
- Lieutenant Hugh McKenzie of the 7th Canadian Machine Gun Company.
- Corporal Colin Fraser Barron of the 3rd (Toronto) Battalion.
- Private James Peter Robertson of the 27th (City of Winnipeg) Battalion.

## Commemoration

For the Canadian Corps, participation in the Second Battle of Passchendaele is commemorated with the Passchendaele Memorial at the former site of the Crest Farm on the southwest fringe of Passchendaele village.

Part of the Third Battle of Ypres in the First World War

Battles of World War I involving Australia

Battles of World War I involving Germany

Battles of the Western Front (World War I)


Tifa Lockhart

Tifa Lockhart (Japanese: ティファ・ロックハート, Hepburn: Tifa Rokkuhāto) is a character who debuted in Square's (now Square Enix) 1997 role-playing video game Final Fantasy VII. She was created as a foil to her teammate Aerith Gainsborough by members of the development team including director Yoshinori Kitase and writers Kazushige Nojima and Tetsuya Nomura; Nomura additionally contributed her visual design. She has since appeared as a playable fighter in Ehrgeiz and the Dissidia Final Fantasy series and made cameo appearances in several other titles, such as Kingdom Hearts II and Itadaki Street. Beginning in 2005, she has featured in sequels and spin-offs as part of the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII series, including the computer-animated film Advent Children and the Final Fantasy VII Remake project.

Tifa is the childhood friend of Cloud Strife, the protagonist of Final Fantasy VII. She is owner of the 7th Heaven bar in the slums of Midgar and a member of the eco-terrorist group AVALANCHE. She convinces Cloud Strife to join the group to keep him close and safe, and later assists him in saving the Planet from the game's villain, Sephiroth. Titles in the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII later expanded upon her character, such as in Advent Children, where she attempts to convince Cloud to let go of his self-imposed guilt and move on with his life after Sephiroth's defeat.

Named the pin-up girl of the "cyber generation" by The New York Times, Tifa has been compared to Lara Croft as an example of a strong, independent and attractive female character in video games. Media have repeatedly praised both the character's strength and appearance and described her as one of the best female characters in gaming.

## Conception and design

Designed by Tetsuya Nomura, Tifa was not present in early versions of Final Fantasy VII, as initially, the game was to have only three playable characters; the protagonist Cloud Strife, Aerith Gainsborough and Barret Wallace. However, during a phone call to project director Yoshinori Kitase, it was suggested that at some point in the game, one of the main characters should die and after much discussion as to whether it should be Barret or Aerith, the producers chose Aerith. Nomura later joked that this was his idea, so as to enable him to introduce Tifa into the game. The notion of having two concurrent heroines and having the hero waver between them was something Kitase liked, describing it as something new in the Final Fantasy series.

Tifa was designed to use the "monk" character class that appears in previous games in the series. She has long, black hair in a style resembling a dolphin's tail at the tip and simple and monotone garments, consisting of a white crop top and black miniskirt. She also wears red boots and gloves, with black sleeves extending from wrist to elbow; her skirt is held up by a pair of narrow black suspenders and a large metal guard covers her left elbow. She stands about 5 feet 6 inches (167 cm) tall and has measurements of 36-24-35" (92-60-88 cm). Internally in the game, the development team jokingly referred to her as "Boing-chan," an allusion to her large breasts.

Initially, Nomura had difficulty deciding whether to go with a miniskirt or long pants. Seeking input, he passed his sketches around Square's offices and the majority of the staff members approved of the miniskirt design. This additionally served as a contrast to Aerith, whose "long skirt" was her trademark. The attire was explained as giving her freedom of movement, due to her hand-to-hand combat specialty and the skirt, referred to as "quite short [...] giving a considerable degree of exposure", was kept as a staple of her alternate costumes. The developers noted that due to her figure, her otherwise plain garments took on a pleasant appearance.

### Post-Final Fantasy VII

When producing Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, co-director Takeshi Nozue had difficulty developing a framework for Tifa's body that was "balanced, yet showed off her feminine qualities". Her outfit was redesigned at this point, with emphasis on expressing those qualities, while still being pleasing to the eye. Nomura describes Tifa's character in Advent Children as having several dimensions, calling her "like a mother, a sweetheart and a close ally in battle" and "remarkably strong, not only emotionally, but physically as well". A white tank top with black zipped up vest covers her front, a pink ribbon wraps around her left biceps and boots cover her feet. A black buttoned-up skirt covers her thighs and she wears shorts beneath, with a piece of cloth similar to a coattail extending from the back of the skirt's waistband and ending at her ankles. She no longer uses suspenders to hold up her skirt and she wears her gloves only during the film's fight scenes. Her hairstyle was changed to end at the middle of her back, with the removal of the dolphin tail from her original design. This alteration was because of the difficulty of animating her original length of hair, as well as problems that arose due to its black color and lighting.

For Final Fantasy VII Remake, they worked heavily with Nomura to refine her design, adding details like little charms around her wrists and going through twenty different hair colors before settling on ashen brown. The development team wanted to avoid the appearance of favoring either Tifa or Aerith so they deliberately tried to match their screen time, as they wanted both to be positioned as heroines, and emphasized Eastern aesthetics and the cuteness of her face to contrast with Aerith's Western aesthetics. In an interview with Weekly Famitsu Square revealed they modified Tifa's outfit at the request of their Ethics Department, giving her a black sports bra and shorts underneath her regular attire, mainly "tightening" her chest so "as not to get unnatural during all the intense action", with Main character modeler Dan Suzuki considering the shorts an improvement to her design. This information led to North American fans to voice concern that her breast size had been reduced, but sources such as gameindustry.biz confirmed through multiple translators this was not the case, and later the book Final Fantasy VII Remake Material Ultimania detailed how they referenced a padded Japanese G70 cup size (95 cm) bra on a real-life model to portray her bust accurately. Additionally they wanted to emphasize her athletic physique, so they gave her character model visibly defined abdominal muscles. She was given multiple dress outfit options for the game as well, with multiple ideas thrown around during development including a maid outfit and chocobo-themed bikini. They finally settled on a black cheongsam with her hair in pigtail buns exposed legs with stockings, and a black kimono that similarly exposed her legs and stockings. Character designer Roberto Ferrari recalled the latter being particularly difficult, as a large number of his design submissions were rejected during the process.

### Casting

Nomura noted that he liked Ayumi Ito as an actress and wished to work with her on Advent Children. With Aerith's voice actor already decided, Nomura asked Ito to voice Tifa, feeling her "husky voice" would offer a good contrast to Maaya Sakamoto's soft-spoken Aerith. Although Tifa's updated design had already been finalized, Ito's casting motivated them to blend many traits from the voice actress into the character's appearance. Cloud's voice actor Takahiro Sakurai said that while he recorded most of his work individually, he performed alongside Ito for a few scenes. These recordings left him feeling "deflated", as the "exchanges he has with Tifa [could] be pretty painful". Ayaka Mitsumoto voiced Tifa in the flashback from the remake where a teenage Tifa interacts with Cloud. Finding a voice suitable for the young Tifa made Nomura and the staff worried in the recording of the title.

English voice actress Rachael Leigh Cook has stated in an interview for Kingdom Hearts II that she enjoys playing Tifa and described her as "very strong physical and emotionally, but also very sensitive" and "very multi-dimensional". In voicing the character, Cook listened to Ito's recording as a guide to how the character sounds. Following Advent Children, Cook thanked Nomura for the film he created as she enjoyed it. Britt Baron voiced Tifa in Final Fantasy VII Remake, while the child portrayal of Tifa is voiced by Glory Curda.

## Appearances

### Final Fantasy VII

Introduced in Final Fantasy VII, Tifa is the childhood friend of Cloud Strife and owner of the 7th Heaven bar in the slums of Midgar, a technologically advanced metropolis owned by the Shinra Electric Power Company. She is also a member of the eco-terrorist organization AVALANCHE, who oppose Shinra's extraction and use of Mako, the planet's spiritual energy, as a power source. She convinces Cloud to join the group to keep a closer eye on him after noticing his personality has changed, and she follows him in pursuit of the game's antagonist, Sephiroth. Unable to keep him from being manipulated by Sephiroth, she helps him recover after his mind becomes fractured and they realize their mutual feelings for one another, working together to defeat Sephiroth.

In a formative memory of their time as children, Tifa and Cloud had decided to follow a path to a mountain near their hometown of Nibelheim. However, they were both injured and Tifa was in a coma for a week, with her father holding Cloud responsible for the incident. Cloud eventually left to join Shinra's SOLDIER program in order to become stronger, but it is later revealed that he did it primarily to attract her attention. In response, she requested if she were ever in danger, he would return to save her. Years later, during Sephiroth's rampage in Nibelheim, Cloud rescued Tifa after she was wounded by Sephiroth. Tifa was taken to safety by her martial arts instructor and eventually arrived in Midgar, meeting AVALANCHE's leader, Barret Wallace. She joined AVALANCHE to get revenge for the destruction of her home. Shortly before the beginning of Final Fantasy VII, she encountered an incoherent Cloud at the city's train station and convinced him to work for Barret, to keep him close and watch over him.

In early drafts of Final Fantasy VII, Tifa was a background character. Her role in AVALANCHE was to add support behind the scenes and to cheer everyone up after missions, as well as having a particular fondness for Cloud. She was supposed to have a large scar on her back caused by Cloud, and partial amnesia from the incident when she had received it. A scene intended to imply herself and Cloud having sex was proposed by Masato Kato, one of the event planners, but it was replaced with a toned-down version by Kitase in which a risqué line is followed by a fade to black. In an interview, Nojima stated that none of the staff thought the scene would become such an issue at the time.

### Compilation of Final Fantasy VII

In 2005, she appeared in the CGI film Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, set two years after the events of the game. She tries to give emotional support to Cloud, urging him to come to terms with the unwarranted guilt he places upon himself. She also takes care of Barret's adopted daughter Marlene and an orphan, Denzel. During the film, she duels against one of the antagonists, Loz, and later she battles the summoned creature Bahamut SIN with the team. Script writer Kazushige Nojima described her role in the film as "very much like any woman who's been left behind by a man", stating that while they did not want her to appear clingy, they wanted to portray that she was emotionally hurt by Cloud's departure. In the film's initial draft, she was intended to have a more central role in the then-short film, which only featured herself, Cloud and several children, with the story revolving around a note being delivered to him.

Tifa features in the prequel games Before Crisis and Crisis Core, as well as the OVA Last Order. Each of these appearances show different perspectives on the destruction of Nibelheim. The novella "Case of Tifa", written as part of the On the Way to a Smile series, is a story set between the original game and Advent Children. Told from her point of view, the story details how she creates a new 7th Heaven bar in the city of Edge and attempts to hold onto the concept of a normal family with herself and Cloud, despite him beginning to isolate himself from others. Tifa also appears briefly in the game Dirge of Cerberus, set one year after the events of Advent Children in which she helps the protagonist Vincent Valentine defend the planet against the monster Omega WEAPON; in the game's epilogue, she discuss Vincent's disappearance.

Tifa features prominently as a playable character in Final Fantasy VII Remake, which covers only the Midgar portion of the original game. By focusing solely on Midgar, the development team was able to include additional scenes that developed the relationship between Tifa and Aerith. Trace of Two Pasts, a tie-in novel to the remake, depicts the childhoods of Tifa and Aerith. Tifa's section details her upbringing in Nibelheim, her meeting and tutelage under her martial arts master, and her life in the slums of Midgar following her near-death experience during the Nibelheim incident.

### Other appearances

Outside of the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Tifa features in the fighting game Ehrgeiz as an unlockable character and an optional boss. She is a playable character in the electronic board games Itadaki Street Special and Itadaki Street Portable. In Kingdom Hearts II, she appears in her Advent Children attire, searching for Cloud and later fighting various Heartless, the series' monsters. She was originally planned to appear in the Final Mix version of the original Kingdom Hearts, but due to time constraints the staff members chose to incorporate Sephiroth instead. Whereas in the game Cloud goes missing after a battle with Sephiroth, in the manga adaptation, Tifa successfully finds him in Hollow Bastion. In 2015, she was added to the mobile game Final Fantasy: Record Keeper as a playable character.

Tifa is one of the playable characters in the fighting game Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy, which features characters from various Final Fantasy games. She is featured in her Final Fantasy VII outfit, but the player has access to her Advent Children form and a third costume that is shown during Tifa's appearances in Nibelheim. The first print run of the game features another form based on artwork by Yoshitaka Amano. In LittleBigPlanet 2, Tifa is featured as a downloadable character model, and as a Mii costume and spirit in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

## Reception

Since her introduction critics and fans reacted positively to Tifa, often appearing near the top of fan polls. The New York Times featured her as the pin-up girl of for the "cyber generation", while The Beaumont Enterprise cited Tifa as an example of a strong female character in video games in the wake of Lara Croft from the Tomb Raider series. Holly Bonson of Polygon described Tifa as defined by her "brittle confidence and supportiveness", further stating her belief that in the context of Final Fantasy VII she represents forcefulness and sexuality. Den of Geek's Matthew Byrd cited her popularity a result of her character's warmth, strength, and the ability to act both supportive and as a leader depending on when the situation called for it in VII's storyline, but also noted her vulnerability and how it made her a well-rounded character "who is more than worthy of her fan-favorite status". Gus Turner of Complex described her as standing out as "one of gaming's most independent and empowered females ever", and further described her as a feminine foil to the more "girlish" Aerith, further praising her appearance. Jenni Lada of Siliconera called her an iconic heroine, echoing the sentiments of the other critiques, while praising how future installments built upon her character, specifically Remake. In a retrospective, journalist Leigh Alexander argued that Tifa is the heroine of VII's story, there since the beginning and being indispensable during the course of events, calling her "a partner for a grown-up player" and questioned how many of them didn't properly appreciate her on their first playthrough of the game may do so now.

A significant part of Tifa's reception has focused on her sex appeal, to this end having appeared on third party merchandise related to this aspect and cited as a frequent search topic on Pornhub. Electronic Gaming Monthly awarded her the "Hottest Game Babe" of 1997, calling her "as well-proportioned as they come" and heavily praising her sexual attributes, but also noting her physical and emotional strength as a character. UGO.com shared similar sentiments, complimenting her outfit as well and describing her as a "bona-fide sex symbol", while further noting that she was a rarity among female characters in video games at the time of VII' release. IGN's Phil Pirrello attributed a significant part of her popularity to her large breasts, nothing that she was an example of how series tried to add real sex appeal with Final Fantasy VII, and while her model in the original game was primitive by today's standards, he suggested it had a significant impact on the teenage demographic at its time. Fellow contributor Dave Smith suggested similar, stating it was hard to sing her praises "without sounding just a little teeny-weeny bit sexist", but further added that she helped define "tough, independent" roleplaying game heroines that came after her too due to her character. In yet another article the staff noted that while her original design was meant to emphasize her physical beauty, they stated her "awe-inspiring strength, complex background, strong will and her attachment to Cloud" defined her as more than "just an eye-catching woman", further calling her a legendary heroine in the series. The book The Legend of Final Fantasy VII noted that while Tifa has many attributes of a seductive woman, specifically emphasizing her large breasts, she "thwarts the stereotypes associated with her appearance", due to being an independent and strong character, further calling her often the most "leveled headed" and pragmatic character in the game's cast.

In January 2022, a Zoom videoconference meeting done in the Italian Senate was interrupted by a user displaying fanmade 3D rendered pornography featuring Tifa engaging in sexual intercourse. The user was quickly removed, but due to the conference being televised knowledge of the event quickly went viral. While Tifa's use in it was coincidental, it led to a surge in the character's popularity. Jade King of TheGamer noted however that while much reaction to it revolved around fan art of a sexual nature, it also resulted in a large amount of what they saw as "wholesome" art celebrating the character and the humor of the situation, usually portraying her in an awkward or comedic manner in association with the event or the country itself. King attributed it in part to Remake's recent release, but also the enduring nature of the character, calling it wholesome and an "aspect of Tifa's character that will now be ingrained into her history, and there's something brilliant about that".

Video game character

Fictional martial artists in video games

Video game characters introduced in 1997

Video game characters with superhuman strength


Aldermaston

Aldermaston /ˈɔːldərmɑːstən/ is a village and civil parish in Berkshire, England. In the 2011 census, the parish had a population of 1,015. The village is in the Kennet Valley and bounds Hampshire to the south. It is approximately 8 miles (13 km) from Newbury, Basingstoke, and Reading and is 46 miles (74 km) from London.

Aldermaston may have been inhabited as early as 1690 BCE; a number of postholes and remains of cereal grains have been found in the area. Written history of the village is traced back at least as far as the 9th century CE, when the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles showed that the Ealdorman of Berkshire had his country estate in the village. The manor of Aldermaston was established by the early 11th century, when the village was given to the Achard family by Henry I; the manor is documented in the Domesday Book of 1086. St Mary the Virgin Church was established in the 13th century, and some of the original Norman architecture remains in the building's structure. The last resident Lord of the Manor, Charles Keyser, died in 1929. Aldermaston Court, the manor estate and house, was requisitioned for armed forces use during the Second World War.

The name "Aldermaston" is well known in connection with the UK's nuclear weapons programme, as well as the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. The Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), which develops, maintains, and disposes of the UK's nuclear weaponry is in the parish. Built on the site of the former RAF Aldermaston, the plant has been the destination of numerous Aldermaston Marches. Until 2006, the village was home to the Aldermaston Pottery, which was established by Alan Caiger-Smith and Geoffrey Eastop in 1955.

## History

Evidence suggests that Aldermaston was inhabited in the 12th century CE, possibly extending back to 1690 BCE. Radiocarbon dating on postholes and pits in the area show activity from 1690 to 1390, 1319 to 1214, and 977 to 899 BCE. Wheat and barley grains have been found in these excavations. Tests show that most of the barley was dehulled, but that absence of such debris may mean that the cereal was brought in from other areas.

### Middle Ages

Before the 1066 Norman conquest, the land and properties of Aldermaston formed part of the estates of Harold Godwinson, the Earl of Wessex, who later became King Harold II of England. Harold's assessment of Aldermaston valued the village's 15 hides at £20 a year. As with much of the land seized by William the Conqueror after his arrival in England in 1066, Aldermaston was held in demesne. His Domesday Book of 1086 identified the existence of a mill, worth twenty shillings, and two fisheries, worth five shillings. During the rest of William's reign, and that of his son William Rufus, Aldermaston was owned by the Crown.

The history of the Lords of the Manor of Aldermaston Court can be traced to Achard D'Aldermaston, who was born in 1036. Six families have had lordship of the Aldermaston estate. In the 11th century, Henry I gave Aldermaston to Robert Achard (or Hachard) of Sparsholt. In the mid-12th century, the Achard family founded the church of St Mary the Virgin. In 1292, Edward I granted the right for the lord of the manor to hold a market in the village. Another charter was granted by Henry IV, with evidence that the market existed until approximately 1900. The Achards also established an annual fair to observe the feast of St. Thomas the Martyr on 7 July.

Aldermaston was held by the Achard family until the 14th century, when it passed through marriage to Thomas De La Mare of Nunney Castle, Somerset. The De La Mare family governed Aldermaston for approximately 120 years, until Elizabeth De La Mare whose male relatives predeceased her—married into the Forster family. In about 1636, the Forsters built a large manor house to the east of the church. The house incorporated parts of an earlier (15th century) house, including the chimney stacks. The Forsters' house was fronted by two porches, separated by a central section with seven bays. The porches had ornate Solomonic columns, similar to those at the University Church of St Mary the Virgin in Oxford.

The interior of the house featured a number of mythical statues, as well as artwork by Gaspard Dughet, portraits of William Congreve and Godfrey Kneller, and Tintoretto's Esther Before Ahasuerus. The house's Jacobean garden featured patterns of groves and avenues of oak, yew, Spanish chestnut and lime trees. In the early 18th century the Forsters oversaw the building of almshouses in Church Road. Built by R Dixon in 1706, the houses became known as "Dixon's Cottages". The manor passed through the Forster family until 1752, when the Forster lineage ended and the estate was inherited by Ralph Congreve, the husband of the last Forster's grand-niece. On Ralph's death a second-cousin of dramatist William Congreve inherited the manor. The Congreve Family owned the estate at the time of the 1830 Swing Riots. The rioters marched across Aldermaston, wrecking twenty-three agricultural machines. Workers were so frightened by the riots that they left their machinery in the open in an attempt to limit additional damage.

### Victorian era

In 1843, the manor house was destroyed by fire, news of which was carried in The Illustrated London News. The estate passed into the Court of Chancery and was purchased by Daniel Higford Davall Burr. In 1848, Burr commissioned the building of a neoclassical mansion to the south west of the original building. Burr saved the 17th-century manor's wooden staircase, though all that remains of the building is a staircase to the cellar (which is now home to a colony of bats). By 1851 the new building was complete, costing £20,000 and having a Tudor-like appearance. Burr held the estate until his death 50 years later, when this was inherited by his son, who sold it in 1893.

The buyer was the wealthy stockbroker Charles Edward Keyser, who was preoccupied with the idea of keeping the village unchanged—or, as he described it, "unspoilt". He forbade advertisements, opposed all modernisation and refused to allow any expansion by the building of houses. He did, however, commission the building of a parish hall in 1897 and provided the village with a water supply, and the water fountain on the small village green was installed to commemorate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. Keyser oversaw the restoration of the village almshouses in 1906 and 1924, and defrayed the cost of a memorial oak tablet in memory of those killed in World War I. Of the 100 men from the village who served in the war, 22 were killed (the highest percentage of town population in the country). The tablet bears the name of each man lost in action.

During Keyser's lordship, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales listed Adminston as a possible name for the village. On his death in 1929, his wife, Mary, continued to occupy the house until she died in 1938. The estate was auctioned off in September 1938, and many lots were purchased by their occupiers. The manor house was bought by Associated Electrical Industries (AEI) for £16,000. One of the houses in the village is recorded as having fetched £1,375. As AEI's chairman, Felix Pole became the de jure Lord of the Manor upon their purchase of Aldermaston Court.

### Post-World War II

During the 1940s RAF Aldermaston was created on the parkland at the southern end of the parish, with the Women's Land Army and the XIX Tactical Air Command stationed on the estate. After World War II, the manor was returned to AEI who built the MERLIN reactor on part of the land. The reactor was opened on 6 November 1959 by The Duke of Edinburgh. With the opening of the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment (AWRE) in 1950, Aldermaston became synonymous with a number of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) marches.

In 1953, Pole stepped down as Lord of the Manor and was succeeded by AEI's senior representative, Thomas Allibone. Allibone held the position for 32 years, until Blue Circle Industries acquired the estate in 1985. Allibone was succeeded by Tony Jackson, and the current Lord of the Manor is Andy Hall. Blue Circle could not gain planning permission in the grounds of the court, so the MERLIN reactor was demolished to make way for Portland House. With a full redevelopment of Aldermaston Manor, the £14 million office development became Blue Circle's international headquarters and the complex was opened by Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester.

### Toponymy

The village of Aldermaston derives its name from Ældremanestone, Eldremanestune or Hedlremanestone, the Old English for "Ealdorman's Homestead". The Ealdorman—or Alderman—was a person of extreme importance, equating to the modern-day Lord-Lieutenant of the county. Although his country estate was in Aldermaston, he would have spent most of the time in the original county town of Wallingford. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states that the first known Ealdorman of Berkshire, Aethelwulf, fought the Danes with Ethelred of Wessex at the nearby Battle of Englefield in 871. Other documented names include Aldermaston ad Pontem (11th century), Aldremanneston (12th century), Aldremaneston (13th century), Aldermanston and Aldermanneston Achard (14th century), and Aldmerston (19th century).

## Governance

Historically, Aldermaston was a hundred, though for a period it was within the Theale hundred. By the 19th century, the hundreds had been superseded by other sub-divisions. From then on, Aldermaston was, at times, part of the Bradfield Poor Law Union and Sanitary District, and the registration sub-districts of Mortimer (late 19th century) and Bucklebury (early 20th century). It was at all times an ecclesiastical parish and acquired civil parish status in the 1890s. The civil parish council is elected by every resident on West Berkshire elections. It is in the area of West Berkshire unitary authority. The electoral ward of Aldermaston includes the neighbouring parishes of Wasing, Brimpton, Midgham, and Woolhampton.

The ward is the smallest in West Berkshire by population. The ward's councillor is Dominic Boeck, who represents the Conservative Party. Aldermaston is under the catchment of Thames Valley Police and is covered by the Brimpton Neighbourhood Policing Team. In a meeting with Aldermaston parish council, the police reported that 57 criminal offences were reported to have taken place in the parish between 2009 and 2010. Of this, the majority was theft from non-dwelling properties. Vehicle crime had dropped by 57% on the previous year but violent crime had risen from four to six incidents. Five of these crimes were reported to be domestic violence. There have been no reported cases of robbery in Aldermaston since 2006.

## Geography

Aldermaston is in West Berkshire, about 2 miles (3.2 km) from the Hampshire boundary. The village is 1 mile (1.6 km) south of the A4 road that links the parish with Newbury and Reading. The main road in Aldermaston, The Street, is part of the A340 road and links the village with Pangbourne and Basingstoke. The course of Ermin Street, the Roman road that linked Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester) with Glevum (Gloucester) via Corinium Dobunnorum (Cirencester) runs south of the village, but none of the road survives in the area.

At the southern end of The Street is a small triangular village green called The Loosey—possibly named after a "Lucy" who planted the oak tree which stands on the green. The Loosey is the site of a Roman well, discovered in 1940 by a cow that almost fell down it. The Loosey was previously home to the village maypole (which was often climbed by Daniel Burr's monkey) and a drinking fountain erected by Charles Keyser to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria.

The River Kennet and River Enborne flow through the parish, and their confluence is approximately 0.6 miles (0.97 km) north of the village. The Kennet and Avon Canal forms part of the parish's boundaries with Woolhampton and Padworth. Sections of Grim's Bank are in the parish. Part of the earthwork in the AWE complex survives at a height of 3.3 metres (11 ft) and with a ditch 0.9 metres (3.0 ft) deep. The village has a couple of Sites of Special Scientific Interest called West's Meadow and Aldermaston Gravel Pits.

### Geology

The landscape of Aldermaston is influenced by Paices Hill and Rag Hill, which are extremities of the chalk formation the North Wessex Downs as part of the Thames Basin Heaths. The topography of the land in the parish generally slopes northward to the River Kennet. The soil in the parish is high in clay. Due to the parish's location within the Kennet Valley there is a high concentration of alluvium, with the content largely determined by the London Clay Formation, the Bagshot Formation, and the Bracklesham Beds.

### Flooding

The quite flat low clay of Aldermaston's north has with exceptional rainfall led to flooding certain populous streets on three occasions—1971, 1989, and 2007. The flood in 1971 caused by torrential rain was exacerbated by the non-porous tarmac and buildings of the Atomic Weapons Establishment which managed for the first time to overwhelm its balancing ponds. This happened again in July 1989, when an average of 6 inches (150 mm) of rain was deposited across the parish in two hours; water rose 5 feet (1.5 m) above the ponds and broke through a brick wall. The destroyed wall was rebuilt with 17 grilles to avoid another build-up of water. A donation of £10,000 was given to the village by Blue Circle.

In July 2007, torrential rain flooded some of the traditional village centre and primary school. The storm coincided with the annual Glade Festival and jeopardised the event. The festival gates were temporarily closed while organisers assessed the flooding, which submerged one of the stages. The festival's car park was incapacitated, with thousands of revellers stranded in the village and surrounding lanes. The floods also hit the Church of England primary school, with the Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service evacuating pupils and staff from the school in life rafts.

The evacuation used four rafts, rescuing pupils and teachers from the school through windows. The 165 people (140 pupils and 25 members of staff) were taken uphill to the parish hall, where blankets and sleeping bags had been provided. Thames Valley Police stated that the emergency services were "really stretched because of what happened over the county and the Glade event", that "the A340 road junction was two or three-foot under water", and predicted that "a lot of householders would be homeless."

## Demography

The 1831 census showed that 68% of the employed population of Aldermaston were working class or "labourers and servants". 20% were middle class ("middling sorts"), 10% were upper class ("employers and professionals") and 2% were unclassified. In 1887 the population of the parish was 528. By 1896, the population had grown to 585. The population fluctuated steadily around 550 until the 1950s and 1960s, when a population explosion resulted in the 1961 UK census reporting 2,186 residents in the parish. This coincides with the opening of the Atomic Weapons Establishment in the early 1950s, and the majority of this figure counts residents in the parts of Tadley within the parish of Aldermaston—between 1901 and 1961, 368 houses were built in the parish.

A number of parish border changes occurred in the first half of the 20th century, including the net loss of 307 acres (124 ha) to Beenham and Woolhampton on 1 April 1934 alone. By 2001, the parish population had reduced to 927.

The 2001 United Kingdom Census identified that 99.3% of householders in the parish as white. In 2005 30% of parish residents lived in the village. Of the 70% outside the village, 30% lived at Aldermaston Wharf, 20% in the local mobile home parks, 10% in the Falcon Fields development and 10% in "other outlying areas". Falcon Fields is a housing development on the southern border of the parish, completed in the early 2000s. Ravenswing and Pinelands are mobile home parks near the Hampshire border. Raghill is an industrial area to the east of the parish, which has some light residential developments. The average age of residents in the parish is approximately 50 with 31.5% of residents in the 45–64 age group. The average age of residents of Aldermaston Wharf is 30.7, and in the mobile home parks the average age is 53.9. Of these, 53.3% were female. This is in contrast with the 2001 census data, which showed that 49.8% were female.

In 2005, 3% of the parish population were unemployed and 25% were retired. The retirement figure increased in the Pinelands and Ravenswing areas, with a statistic of 42%. Most residents' places of work are in surrounding towns, with their location in the parish largely dictating where to look for work. The 2005 survey identified that residents in the south of the parish (Falcon Fields and Ravenswing/Pinelands) travel towards Tadley and Basingstoke whereas those further north in the parish tend to find work in Reading, Newbury and London.

At this time, 52% of homes were owned outright, with 30% owned with a mortgage. Rented accommodation accounted for 12% of residences. The population at the 2011 census was 1,015, giving a population density of .

## Economy

Historically, the main source of industry in Aldermaston has been agriculture. According to the 1831 census, approximately 66% of working men (aged 20 and over) were employed in some form of agriculture. The next highest industry by workers was "retail and handicrafts", which employed approximately 20%. Employment categories in the 1881 census were more discreet; just 20% of working men identified their employment as agriculture. 30% however, were listed as "general or unspecified commodities". In this census, women's employment was also documented. Of the 137 working women in the parish, 40 (slightly fewer than 30%) worked in domestic services, whereas 82 (approximately 60%) were of an unknown occupation.

### Agriculture

In about 1797 a schoolmaster living in the village cultivated the Williams pear. The schoolmaster (either Mr Wheeler or his successor, John Stair) was the original cultivator, but the pear (a cultivar of the European Pear) was named after Richard Williams of Turnham Green, who grew several grafts of the original tree. On 5 December 1956, a plaque commemorating the tree was unveiled on the wall of the village school.

The Domesday survey records a mill in Aldermaston. Aldermaston Mill, previously called the "Kingsmill", supplied flour to Huntley & Palmers in Reading. The mill was owned by Wasing's Mount family throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. The family let the mill to Francis Webb (1797–1811), Mr Sherwood (1811–1820), Mr King (1820–1824), Mr Waldren (1824–1828), Mr Mathews (1828–1848), and William Gilchrist (1848–1856). Gilchrist (Mathews' business partner) bought the mill from William Mount in 1856 using money inherited from his brother's death the previous year. Owning it outright for approximately a year, he drowned in the River Kennet in 1857 after visiting the Angel public house in Woolhampton. Joseph Crockett purchased the mill in an auction the same year, before it was acquired by a Richard Sisling of Godalming in 1858. In approximately 1860, the mill was purchased by the Kersley family. Between then and 1885, it was operated by Anthony Kersley, a miller and maltster who employed "six men and a boy, a carter, several domestic servants and a governess". Kersley's son, also named Anthony, ran the mill until 1895. That year, Walter Parson bought the mill and operated it until approximately 1897. Charles Keyser subsequently oversaw the restoration on the mill building which "had been untenanted for upwards of three years". He let the mill out to a Mr Iremonger from 1901. Locally farmed wheat was milled at Aldermaston Mill until the 1920s. Iremonger used the mill until the late 1920s, shortly before Keyser's death. After Keyser had died and the Aldermaston estate had been divided and sold, his widow, Mary, approached Evelyn Arlott to run the mill as a tea room and guesthouse. The Arlott family purchased the mill in approximately 1939, after the death of Mary Keyser.

In 1939, there were seven farms on the Aldermaston estate—Forsters Farm, Village Farm, Church Farm, Upper Church Farm, Raghill Farm, Park Farm, and Soke Farm. These accounted for approximately 75% of the estate's land. Aside from these, there were six smallholdings within the parish but outside the land owned by the court. These were Springhill Farm, Court Farm, Strawberry Farm, Circus Farm, Ravenswing Farm, and Frouds Farm. Of these, Church Farm and Forster's Farm remain in operation. Upper Church Farm was originally known as Harry's Farm, after a William Harry who died in 1544.

### Pubs and brewing

The local pub is named The Hind's Head in honour of the Forster family crest. Built in the 17th century and originally operating as a coaching inn, the establishment was named The Pack Horse during the De La Mare and Forster lordships and The Congreve Arms throughout the Congreves' ownership. The building has a large black and gold clock set into the gable, and a small bell turret upon which is a gilt fox-shaped weather vane. The bell was intended to be rung as an air-raid siren during the Second World War. In the early 19th century the pub's signboard carried the arms of the Congreve family, as well as branding for a company named "Adams".

In the British Parliamentary Papers of 1817, the Committee on the State of the Police in the Metropolis reported evidence of a John Adams—a Reading-based distiller and hop merchant—who competed for business against H & G Simonds Brewery. By 1850, the pub brewed beer on-site; a brewery was built as an out-building behind the main pub building. John Knight produced beer at the pub for 40 years, selling it for 2d. The brewery building is still in existence, with the wooden louvres still operational. The building is now the pub's kitchen. In the 1970s, the pub was owned by Whitbread. In the mid-1990s the pub was taken over by Gales Brewery (having previously been a free house), later becoming tied to Fuller's Brewery on their acquisition of Gales in 2006. In the 1970s, the pub was home to the Kennet Folk Club.

At the rear of the pub is the village lock-up. Built out of red brick, the small single-storey building has a shallow domed roof. The inside of the lock-up measures approximately 7.5 feet (2.3 m) by 6 feet (1.8 m), and is enclosed by a studded door with a grille. It was last used in 1865 and its drunk inhabitant burnt himself to death trying to keep warm. The lock-up was designated as a Grade II listed building in April 1967. On 11 September 2010 the lock-up was opened to the public as part of the Heritage Open Days scheme. Another pub in the parish, The Butt Inn, is located approximately 1.25 miles (2.01 km) north-east of the village. The pub is named after the archery butts that were located in the fields opposite the pub. The Falcon Inn was on the southern border of the parish. The pub closed in 2009 and was demolished in 2011. The Aldermaston Brewery was established at Aldermaston Wharf in 1770, and was demolished in the 1950s. It was replaced with a cable factory, which was demolished in 1990.

### Cricket bats

Old Village Farm (on Fishermans Lane) is the location of a wood yard, used since the 1930s to prepare local willow for the production of cricket bats. The trees are grown at Harbour Hill Copse, where 70 trees are felled annually for this purpose. There are approximately 1000 trees growing at any given time. The workers at the yard cut the wood into approximate bat shapes, then cure the wood in a kiln. The clefts of wood are then shipped to India, where the final manufacturing can be undertaken under moisture-controlled conditions. In the 1960s, Blue Peter aired a short documentary on the cricket bat production entitled "The Life of a Cricket Bat". It was presented by Christopher Trace.

The yard would take on three up-coming cricketers for the winter, in the hope that the hard work would "toughen them up" to get them picked for the England cricket team. One year the yard had help from Frank Tyson, Alan Moss, and Peter Loader. The following year they hosted three Davids—David Kaufman, David Spragbury, and David Gibson. The wood yard was featured on A Question of Sport, when cricketer Graham Gooch took part in the programme's "Mystery Guest" round. Gooch endorsed the bats made from Aldermaston willow, which were sold by Stuart Surridge. When he scored 333 runs against India at Lord's in the 1990 test season, the Turbo 333 bat, made from Aldermaston wood, was launched in his honour.

### Pottery

In 1955, the Aldermaston Pottery was established on the main street by studio potters Alan Caiger-Smith and Geoffrey Eastop. The pottery was renowned for tin-glazed and porcelain wares, which used scrap wood from the Village Farm woodyard to fire the kiln. The pottery closed in 2006. It had previously scaled back its output in 1993 due to Caiger-Smith's partial retirement after the 1992 recession.

### Atomic Weapons Establishment

The Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), for which Aldermaston has become known, is less than 1 mile (1.6 km) south of the village. The establishment is where the United Kingdom designs and manufactures the warheads for its stock of Trident missiles, and where decommissioned and redundant nuclear warheads are dismantled. In April 1958, the first Aldermaston March was held. The march saw around 3,000 protesters march from London to Aldermaston over four days, with a total attendance of 12,000 at the establishment's gates.

The 50th anniversary of the event was marked on 24 March 2008 with the "Bomb Stops Here" protest, attended by Vivienne Westwood and Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) president Walter Wolfgang. The 2008 demonstration was the biggest protest staged by CND in ten years. Until 2005, AWE discharged "pre-treated waste water" into the River Thames at Pangbourne via an 11.8-mile (19.0 km) pipeline which runs under roads and fields within the parish. A water processing facility was installed on-site in 2006, though the Pangbourne Pipeline remains in situ.

### Other businesses

Lafarge Aggregates owns various sites in the parish. In 1974 the village won an appeal against Pioneer Concrete's application for gravel extraction near the village. Similar events took place in March 2003 when hundreds of local residents protested against an application of gravel extraction by Lafarge. Larfarge's initial appeal, in April 2003, was turned down by West Berkshire Council. A further application to extract aggregate at the Wasing Estate was due to be decided in 2010. One former extraction site, Butts Lake Quarry, is now a local nature reserve and the flooded lakes have been identified as a Site of Special Scientific Interest and is now operated by the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust (BBOWT). The reserve contains specimens of trees such as alder, cherry, hawthorn, oak, and willow. Examples of reeds present include typha latifolia, phragmites australis, mentha aquatica, and lythrum salicaria. Numerous species of bird nest in the reserve, including the common teal, shoveler, common kingfisher, water rail, and common nightingale.

Britain's first roadside petrol station was opened by The AA on the Bath Road near Aldermaston on 2 March 1919. The following year, one villager requested that a pump be installed by his house. "Chuffer" Ford, who lived in The Forge with his wife Olive, was told by Keyser that it must be "behind a wall and recessed". A hole was cut in the brick wall beside Ford's yard to house the Shell-branded pump. The location of this pump is marked by a square hole in the present wall. Ford's business offered other motoring services, with signage reading "vacuum, oil, and cycles". There is a number of small businesses in the village, including a florist and the village shop. In the 1970s the hairdressers was a music shop, which was opened by Terry Wogan. Before this it was a cooperative village stores started by Charles Keyser.

There are two business parks in the parish—Calleva Business Park (on the Berkshire/Hampshire border) and Youngs Industrial Estate on Paices Hill. The latter opened in the early 1980s, and is the location of Paices Wood Country Parkland, a wildlife project managed by BBOWT. In 2007 Aldermaston won the Business Category Award in the regional final of the Calor Village of the Year competition. The judges stated that the village "has a very successful business community" and that "local businesses are well-supported by villagers and in return these businesses support village activities". In addition to the business award, the village was announced as the Overall Winner of the "English Country Village of the Year" competition in 2006, as well as category winners in the "Building Community Life", "Business", "Young People" and "ICT" categories.

## Architecture

The majority of houses in the village were built between the 17th and late 19th centuries, including examples of Victorian Gothic architecture. Only one house has been built on the village's main street since the early 20th century. The parish hall, built in 1897, is predominantly flint and brick. Most of the houses in the village are Grade II listed buildings, and many were built using local red and blue bricks. In total, 51 structures in the parish are listed, including gatepiers, greenhouses, a tomb, railings and a wall, the village red telephone box and Aldermaston Lock.

## Culture

Since the early 1800s, Aldermaston has held a candle auction every three years. The open auction starts with a horseshoe nail driven through a tallow candle an inch below the wick and lit in the parish hall. a plot of 2 acres (0.81 ha) granted to the church in 1815 after the Inclosures Act. The proceedings are overseen by the vicar and churchwardens, who drink rum punch throughout the auction. Traditionally, the churchwardens smoked clay pipes during the event. The parish hall often holds other events, such as plays produced by the village's own amateur dramatics society. The society, known as The Aldermaston Players, have staged fundraising events in the village in 1996. In 1976, the parish hall hosted an episode of the BBC's Any Questions?.

The village, along with the neighbouring parish of Wasing, holds an annual produce show at The Old Mill. The show, which was previously held behind the Hind's Head pub, hosts produce competitions in approximately 100 classes. In the 1990s, a team of gardeners formed from the produce show entered the Chelsea Flower Show. They won a silver gilt in the Best Courtyard Garden Award in two consecutive years, for gardens named "Calma" and "Time Lords". The parish of Aldermaston forms a group with the local parishes of Wasing and Brimpton. The three share a monthly Parish Magazine featuring stories from churches, organisations, schools, businesses and various miscellany. Since 1957 there has been an annual performance of the York Nativity Play from the 15th century York Mystery Cycle. The play follows a script by E. Martin Browne with carols by William Byrd, Johannes Eccard, and Michael Praetorius. The performances are at the village church in early December, and the actors are local people who have appeared in the play for many years. In 1964, the play was recorded and broadcast by the BBC Home Service under the title of Star Over Aldermaston. One member of the production team was David Shute.

Aldermaston was mentioned in Plum Pie (1966) by P. G. Wodehouse—"Every now and then we march from Aldermaston, protesting like a ton of bricks... And then we sit a good deal." This was a reference to the demonstrations of the CND (the Aldermaston Marches) which took the form of marches from Aldermaston to London (apart from in 1958, when the march went from London to Aldermaston). This was an annual march from 1958 to 1963. Aldermaston was the original location of Glade Festival. The 2007 event was jeopardised by torrential rains and flooding but cautiously went ahead. In 2009, the festival moved from the area and was held near Winchester. Between 2006 and 2017, blues festival "Blues on the Meadow" was held in the village.

## Transport

Aldermaston railway station is in Aldermaston Wharf, 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from the village itself. The station is managed by National Rail and served by Great Western Railway services between Reading and Newbury. The village is 1.5 miles (2.4 km) south-east of the Kennet and Avon Canal at Aldermaston Wharf, which provides waterway links to London (via the Thames) and Bristol (via the River Avon). The village is on the A340 road, and has nearby access to the A4 road and the M4 motorway.

A West Berkshire Council-run bus service, route 44, serves the village and provides a connection with Thatcham and Calcot The 2005 Parish Plan identified a need for a relief road near the village. A report was presented in 2009 evaluating the problems caused by HGV traffic through the village, and described solutions which included support from Newbury MP Richard Benyon. The nearest operating airstrip, Brimpton Airfield, is less than 1 mile (1.6 km) west of the village, within AWE's restricted airspace. RAF Aldermaston ceased to operate as a civilian airport in 1950.

## Education

The parish of Aldermaston has two primary schools. Aldermaston Primary School is a Local Authority-run Church of England school in Wasing Lane and has about 150 pupils. It was established in 1836 and originally located in Church Road, moving to the present site in 1988. The school uses the names of the manor's squires in its house system. Between 1992 and 2021, The Cedars (a private school) was located in original building of the Church of England school and had an enrolment of approximately 30. It reopened in 2022 as a day nursery. Alder Bridge Steiner School, although located in Aldermaston Wharf, is within the parish of Padworth. Padworth College is situated on the border of Aldermaston and Padworth parishes.

## Religious sites

The Church of England parish church of Saint Mary the Virgin was built in the mid-12th century. The Norman building was altered throughout the following millennium, particularly in 13th, 14th, 15th and 17th centuries. The 12th-century building now comprises the current nave, with additions seen in the Forster Chapel and chancel (13th century), the steeple (14th century), and vestry (17th century). The 17th-century Jacobean pulpit is an unusual heptagonal design. Various additions were made to the structure in the 14th and 15th centuries, primarily to the walls and ogee windows. A scratch dial was added to the south-west buttress in the 14th century.

The church features architecture by Edward Doran Webb and stained glass by Charles Eamer Kempe. The Forster Chapel, a lady chapel added to the south face in the 13th century, contains the alabaster effigial monument of Sir George Forster and his wife Elizabeth which was built in 1530. Evidence suggests that the chapel may originally have been a chantry dedicated to St Nicholas. The roundel windows in the north wall date from the 13th century and are the oldest glass in Berkshire. The tower has a peal of eight bells dating from 1681 to 1900. The current organ, which has 16 stops, was installed in 1880. Individuals buried in the churchyard include squires Charles Keyser (1847–1929) and Daniel Burr (c. 1811–1885), schoolmaster John Stair (c.1745–1820), and Maria Hale (1791–1879).

## Sport

Aldermaston has a number of sports teams. The village cricket team, Aldermaston Village CC, play at nearby Wasing Park. The club, which first played in 1786 as "The Gentlemen of Aldermaston", originally played at a pitch at Aldermaston Court. The ground was lost when the airfield was built. Sir William Mount, 2nd Baronet, the grandfather of British Prime Minister David Cameron, allowed a cricket pitch to be established on a portion of his Wasing estate. The original football club played next to the cricket pitch. The club's strip was sponsored by George L Heighton, the proprietor of the village shop. Aldermaston Rugby Club and A.F.C. Aldermaston both play their home games at the Recreational Society at AWE. Tadley RFC is in the parish, about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from the village. Aldermaston Raceway, a banger racing and stock car venue, was located in the parish. A course for off-road 4x4 trials]] is close to the raceway.

## Notable people

- Thomas Allibone, Lord of the Manor (1953–1985)
- Alan Caiger-Smith, the studio potter, founded Aldermaston Pottery
- Duncan Grant, painter, lived in the village with Paul Roche for the last few years of his life, and died in the village
- Felix Pole, Lord of the Manor (1939–1953)
- Paul Roche, poet, lived in the village

Village in Berkshire, England