Its population would have been a few hundred, I suppose, and there was open country between it and Newbury. Newbury really began (conveniently for my father) at the hospital, a mile down the hill from our gate. The first battle of Newbury, at which Lord Falkland, a leading cavalier, was killed (some say suicidally), was fought on 22 September 1643 at Wash Common and on the lower land lying between Wash Common and Newbury. In my day this was something which every Wash Commoner knew and could talk about with at least a smattering of local topographical knowledge. (‘Ah, that’s where they put the guns, see?’) The Royalist army, under the King and his nephew Prince Rupert, had been besieging Gloucester. Gloucester was defended for the Roundheads by the gallant young Colonel Massey, and Parliament, determined to relieve him, had sent an army from London, commanded by the Earl of Essex. The siege was raised and Essex duly set out to march back to London. If he couldn’t get there his army would disintegrate for lack of supplies.
