Wargrave Local History Society
Historic Village Walk
Wargrave Village Festival
12 June 2001
A-000028
In June, the Wargrave Local History Societys activities took place as part of the Village Festival. On Tuesday, June 12th and Sunday June 17th there were sell out groups of people to be seen by the church and on the village High Street, partaking in one of the Historic Village Walks. The Society has recently revised and updated the booklet that describes four such walks, and it now includes line drawing illustrations. Copies are available from the Society, or through village outlets at 2.50 each. Then, on Friday, June 15th and Saturday June 17th, the Society mounted an exhibition of historic photographs, maps, documents and objects relating to Wargraves history, in the Woodclyffe Hall. This featured a wide variety of aspects of village life, its people and buildings. A new feature was a continually changing display of colour slides of the village - rarely were the seats by it empty! The source of much of the material on display was the Society archive - but do you have any old photographs, documents or objects relating to Wargrave? If so, the Wargrave Local History Society would like to hear from you (we can photograph / copy items, or if you wish to deposit them for safe keeping, the Society has a secure store for archive material). Please contact the WLHS Secretary, Peter Delaney, 6 East View Close, Wargrave (0118 940 3121), or email at peter.delaney@talk21.com if you think you have something that may be of interest . Then on the Saturday, June 16th, the Society took part in the Festival Parade and Fete. There was, for a long time, a regular daily express coach service through Wargrave village, as well as those along the A4. This was the route from Birmingham via Aldershot, to Portsmouth, which had begun in the mid 1930s. Operated by the Royal Blue and Midland Red companies, it passed southwards along the village High Street in the early afternoon. There was also a service along the A4 through the parish of Wargrave, on its way from Bristol to London, which began on 10th February 1925, also part run by Royal Blue. It is known that in the early 1960s the coach in the Parade was used on this service - another part of Wargraves history!