My office is in Reading and my customer office where I spend a fair amount of time is in Slough. Do people actually stop in Bracknell rather than just pass through it? Last time I stopped there must have been in the 1990s, red traffic lights aside.
Reading University also has the equation L=iN/c0LN/biS/cUiTS, found by the scientists Huntley and Palmer as the highest degree of boredom that any foodstuff can produce.
Thanks John - as entertaining as ever. A couple of fun facts - Gerry Anderson, of Thunderbirds fame, set up facilities in a warehouse on Slough trading estate for producing Supermarionation films and one of Reading Gaol's most famous 'residents' was Oscar Wilde.
Kind of surprising that Century 21 didn't even get a passing mention - for a while, in the mid-60's, they were the largest purchaser outside Hollywood of 35mm colour movie film.
@@abarratt8869yeah most of the immigrants and drug addicts. I'm one of very few white English non addict individuals with the misfortune of residing in Slough 😢
I have a friend who used to be a long distance coach driver. On a trip from Swansea to London he was diverted off the M4 into Slough. While sitting in the ineveitable Bath Road traffic jam, he treated his captive audience to a recitation of Betjeman's famous poem.
Sir John Betjeman’s poem, written in 1937 and simply entitled Slough, criticized the construction of more than 800 factories in the Thames Valley… “Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough! It isn’t fit for humans now.”
@@mb-3fazetime travel must be a thing then. As someone else said, it wasn't about the town, but the trading estate which he visited in the late 1920s, then it was literally a farm converted into an absolute post apocalyptic looking mess with little purpose.
@@ForeverNeverwhere1 Yeah - the time-line with the small disagreement, blitz, poem etc don't really match. I wonder what bombs Sir John was referring to?
Two definitions of the word "slough"... -a hole full of mud or wet soil, such as one in a road. -a condition of degradation, despair, or helplessness. I don't need to add anything else.
Having grown up in Reading, the Bracknell ski centre was my closest ice rink growing up, so I went there occasionally for friends' birthdays and whatnot, I have fond memories of it. I didn't know it had closed. Suddenly hearing it referred to as an "abandoned ski slope" was very jarring!
I skated there for about 10 years, too. The place was losing money (apparently quite common for ice rinks) and you could see it - it was falling apart. Then along came COVID lockdowns and that sealed the deal, it was financially unviable. Losing £250k a year and needing about £650k in maintenance isn't a great recipe. A great shame, really. The replacement rink up the road is much smaller. Demolished in June/July 2022. Still rubble a few weeks ago, but due to be a new warehouse by Q4 2024....
Think it was massively in debt so had to close. Took a while for it to be demolished but the ice rink is now a pile of rubble and only remnants of the ski slope remain.
I remember going there a handful of times as a kid in the late 80s / early 90s.. I still remember the smell of the place! A mixture of heavily salted (and curiously sugary) chips and slush puppies from the cafe, aging plastic crowd seating all around, rubber mats all over the floors for the skates, locker room funk and breeze block walls. Unforgettable!! 😆
Like some of the comments below, I too grew up in Bracknell and Wokingham and it was a great place to live and work. Back in the early Eighties there were well paid jobs to be had around the Western Industrial Estate with the likes of Ferranti, Sperry, Racal and other military electronic's companies. Then the Berlin Wall came down and we all became 'Big Mates' with the Russians and such companies where deemed not necessary any more... Look how that's turned out. Today Bracknell and Wokingham have just become dormitory towns with no such proper industry and with relative easy access to the M4/M3 corridors, most people just work elsewhere. Great series Jon, keep up the good work.
came to the comments to make the very same lament - late 80s pre-alps school ski trips were always prefaced by trips to the Bracknell Alps (far better than Aldershit ski slope). I guess the rise of the indoor snowdomes at Hemel and Milton Keynes have greater allure and someone has no doubt made a lot of money on a property deal for the old site
I'm from a pre New Town local family, grew up in Bracknell, and moved to Wokingham when I left home. Thanks for reminding me why I now live in West Wales, close to a town very much like Bracknell was before it was demolished!
You missed the listed hexagonal tower block (Point Royal) in Bracknell - 60's concrete at its best! Berkshire used to have a large area of land north west of Reading until the boundary changes 'swapped' it for Slough! Love your dry humour Jon!
Point Royal, or the 'threepenny building', was designed by architects Arup Associates, who I believe also worked on the Sydney Opera House and the Birds Nest Stadium in Beijing
Yes John - A lot of history at the Abbey and at Fry's Island. Fry's Island is famous as the location of a trial by combat between Robert de Montfort and Henry of Essex, the standard bearer to King Henry II.
Thanks John. But no mention of Gerry Anderson’s AP Films during your Slough visit. As creators of such masterpieces as Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet I’d have thought that was one thing (probably the only thing) to the town’s credit! 😢
Their early work was done in Maidenhead; the move to Slough Trading Estate came a bit later, although you're not wrong. A lot of the development work was done in a pub in Cookham, where Arthur became the basis for Parker and his "unique" style of speech was born! And I ended up driving Sylvia Anderson in her final years with some marvellous conversations and reminisces for us both about those wonderful productions....
The Office was filmed in one of the office buildings Brilcream was made in Slough Along with Radox bubble bath and bath salts Matty bubble bath also was made there
4:03 An interesting fact about the construction of the Maidenhead Railway Bridge is that to appease the local community Brunel agreed to place some supporting structures underneath the arches, slowly removing them until the bridge was shown to be stable. However being Brunel he put the supporting structures together deliberately to the wrong measurements, there was always a gap of a few millimetres between the structures and the arches, meaning they were always stable anyway, and Brunel got one back against the town.
The Guildhall in Windsor is the same. It was designed by Christopher Wren, but when they saw the plans the councillors didn't believe the design would support the first floor, and so they insisted he had to put in some pillars to hold it up. He put them in, but they actually stop an inch short of the first floor.
And were you aware that the bridge is locally known as the Sounding Arch? Because it's over water, the echoes are absolutely magnificent. It entertained me as a schoolboy umpteen years ago, entertained my children, and gave me a good story for my taxi customers for 30yrs.
As a Wokingham resident I can agree that it’s not very exciting apart from the 11 pubs and umpteen coffee shops. All in all nice place. You didn’t mention the Mars factory in slough but that’s understandable if you needed to wrap up and leave asap.
Re Slough Trading Estate, it was in Edinburgh Avenue that the Thunderbirds TV series was filmed. I used to work 4 doors up the road and never knew! It was also the location of the opening shots of "The Office".
Great video. You missed a trick with the railway bridge in Maidenhead. It is known locally as the Sounding Arches as you get a fantastic echo if you stand underneath it and shout.
Lola racing car company were on the Slough Trading Estate. They designed and built many very successful racing cars there including the Ford GT40. Production of that moved to Ford Advanced Vehicles also on the Estate. (Mars Bars too were made on the Estate!)
Thanks for the history lesson about the hotel in Bracknell. I have a nephew who live near there and wondered why someone would build a fake Alpine Lodge there, but the artificial ski slope answered that question.
Stayed in coppid beach a few months back. So strange as it's got multiple bars and clubs. The room was huge but super dated but had a balcony with spectacular views of the petrol station.
Since watching The Shining as a kid, this place always reminded me of the Overlook Hotel! Never stayed there but worked in the bar and "nightclub" glass collecting when I was 15. They didn't know I was 15 to be fair. 😅
I love your subtle humour, like standing in the weeds in possibly worst corner of Bracknell (there are many to choose) next to what i call the Mordor car park. Fun fact, 2CVs were built in the Slough trading estate.
Wokingham is the home of the National Grid control centre, quite an important establishment I would have thought. I believe its exact location is kept quiet.
@@amazulu3401 Oh, is THAT what that place is?! Never knew that. Was always suspicious it was some kind of black site or at least somewhere you don't wanna f with.
The ski-slope material (6m:40s) is called "Dendix", colloquially known as toothbrush. Brilliant for dislocating or fracturing thumbs (from personal experience).
It used to be an interesting place as a kid.. but bit by bit, swimming pools were bulldozed for housing, the central green space used for monster truck rallies and fun fairs was turned into a crappy swimming pool, futuristic looking (for the early 80s) buildings fell into disrepair and were bulldozed for housing, lots of industry and manufacturing buildings were left to ruin and demolished for housing, fun and unique sporting and leisure venues were bulldozed for housing, carparks and blander leisure venues... I miss Hacienda That (the Mexican themed restaurant in the Phoenix Plaza (before First Bowl).
Bracknell now joins up to Wokingham thanks to the development at the old Transport Research Laboratory. Locals assume it will be renamed soon - to Brackingham. Or Wokenell.
Hi John, thank you for yet another entertaining video. There was a time, before 1974, when the county of Berkshire was a lot taller. It went up as far as the western side of Oxford, and Abingdon, home of the MG (until 1986?). The end of my address was Abingdon, Berkshire and in the Abingdon Borough Council area. A lot changed, not for the better, when Abingdon became part of Oxfordshire and lost its Borough status. Abingdon has been rebranded as Abingdon-on-Thames, and during flooding becomes Abingdon-in-Thames aided by the River Ock. Best wishes from I think you can guess.
Great video. But you missed of a lot of great info of the towns you visit. Wokingham for example, an old market town, Bracknell was the brickyard that build parliament and also housed Kathryn of Aragon, Reading Goal housed Oscar Wilde and was built on the graveyard of Reading Abbey, a place a king was buried.
I once had a go on that ski slope when someone held a kids party there and my daughters went along. It was horrible, burns and broken thumbs if you fall over. Also Wokingham is or was home to Microsoft UK, so that explains the massive growth in nerds in the area.
Jon, that was excellent for the industrial archaeology and the fun. That library at the beginning was wonderful. I never knew it existed. I didn't know Wokingham existed either, but since it doesn't seem to, that's alright.
Wokingham, during WW2, had a fire station of retained firefighters. My Great-uncle Fred was the driver. They could be called out anywhere in Berkshire or Hampshire, even down to Southampton Docks, in the dark, during blackout. As a result, he could find his way about the county, technically blindfold. However, when returning to home, they were "required" to report to Reading Fire Station to be formally "stood down". For some reason he could never explain, Fred could never find the road into Reading, and always ended up phoning Reading from Wokingham that they were safely home.
Anyone remember the buzz and excitement around Wokingham when a make your own pizza stand was opened in the (then) new waitrose?! I could barely close the lid on my pizzas!!
That bit at 6:26, the ski slope. In the late 1990's I used to work out of the Hewlett-Packard HQ which used to be in the background next door to this ski slope. It was all built on reclaimed land with loads of Methane dispensers spinning around. It was a 1hr40 min slog from Portsmouth and back each day. 😞 The place was called Amen Corner, I never found out why.
I grew up there and still no idea. There is a T junction near where I live in Leeds called Amen Corner, and that appears to be after a church being there
Wokingham was a popular trade stop between Bristol, Bath to London and had one of the highest number of pubs in a square mile. The town had over 30 in 1900 and still great for a round of pub golf today. This was a fun one 👌
My Mother in Law came from Slough and my late father in law came from Reading, but moved to Scotland back in 1972. I remember visiting Slough and walking there at night to a shop for my wife to get a bottle of juice. I actually felt uncomfortable as people outside looked dodgy. Imagine my delight a week later back home watching Roadwars when said shop I had been in a week earlier got robbed 😂😂 Reading I thought was ok and Bracknell I stayed in the premier inn there and thats all I done! A excellent video as always Jon.
All my old haunts! I used to work in Bracknell. I remember them building the ski-slopes. Even went to a company Christmas party at the hotel. Surprised you never mentioned the Twin-Bridges roundabout - it had a history of being a pain to get across as it was always busy! Even having said that, I remember those days with fondness. When you got to Reading, I used to work just around the corner from the biscuit factory. Walked along the river many, many times with friends as we went into town for lunch.
If you had turned off the A329 between Wokingham and Reading you could have visited Woodley and what remains of the old aerodrome there. It's all houses now but was where Douglas Bader had a slight disagreement with the ground in his aeroplane.
When I’ve finished with Slough, there’s Reading, Aldershot, Bracknell. Didcot, Yateley. You know. Winnersh. Taplow. Because I am my own boss. Burghfield.
A little more than 40 years ago I flew from the US to the UK to set up a new manufacturing line at our sister company in Slough. There I was introduced to British hospitality (airport gaol), cuisine (sugared beer, full English), and, of course, Slough. Good times indeed.
Ah Reading, the first of three Universities that I have attended at one time or another as I collected my various degrees. You were talking about Reading Gaol, which of course notoriously housed Oscar Wilde at one point, inspiring him to write "The Ballard of Reading Gaol". Meanwhile behind you the flint built church is Greyfriars the last remnant of an ancient Franciscan Friary. There is actually quite a lot to see and do in Reading, but then I am probably biased. Sadly Studying Physics, which was my reason for being there in the late 70's is no longer one of the activities that is possible as the JJ Thompson lab closed in the late 2000's. Anyway great video nostalgia - thank you.
I used to play ice hockey at Bracknell… a bit shocked to learn that the building is no more. And, I learned to ski on that very dry slope! Sad to see it in ruins.
Some of the film Bugsy Malone was filmed at the old Huntley and Palmers biscuit factory and the Sean Connery film The Offence was filmed around Bracknell.
I was born in Slough. My dad had a building company in Ledgers Road, and he built many houses in Wokingham. My grandfather started a bus route number 81 from Slouh to Uxbridge
The infamous poem is in fact a rant about the trading estate, and the rapid industrialisation of post-war England. Slough was also the location of the first zebra crossing in 1951, which was designed at the Road Research Laboratory in Langley during 1946, and would have been located in the now pedestrianised High Street, close to Boots.
As a boy born in Kent and grew up in SE, London I loved your opening remarks about Slough, I have over the years, been forced to visit the area, either for an hour or two, or too the extent of BnB to attend courses, @ Ford(Langley) love what you do John, Please don't tire of that which you do, Got any plans reff, Worksop
I grew up in Farnborough, another jewel of the commuter belt. Having the same name as the trainer company old Johnny N, convinced 1000's of kids that the 'john nike leisure centre' was actually something to do with the NIKE, INC. In the era of Air Jordans we all flocked there expecting some form of U.S.A grandiose experience... The reality was bracknell in the 90s...
We used to “sluff” or 💩hole instead of slough. When Richmond ice rink closed we all went to Bracknell and took the place over. When we left we found most of our cars had been vandalised or broken into.
I used to work on Slough trading estate. If the wind was blowing in the right direction you got the strong smell of caramel from the mars factory. If it was blowing from another direction........sewage works!
I lived in a place called Newell Green which is technically a hamlet outside Bracknell........ now it is almost swallowed up in the increasing conurbation that is Bracknell. This place spreads quicker than the flu.
I'm quite disappointed that you visited the Slough Trading Estate and didn't mention The Office. I have, on several occasions, driven one of these little yellow and blue buses in and out of Slough Bus Station and EVERY TIME that tune popped into my head. I'm so glad it was a good one. One of the best parts of my job was leaving Slough behind for another day, and Reading for that matter.
Wokingham is a near London commuter town - famous for manufacture of Bells, which would be in the guide book - should have been to Bell foundry lane - they made some famous Bells.
So wait Slough was in Buckinghamshire before? and we Berkshire had the some nice green parts of what is now Oxfordshire? We got scammed, we need to retake Vale of white horse and return slough to it’s rightful owners: Buckinghamshire. Slough would definitely fit in with other Buckinghamshire towns such as High Wycombe, Aylesbury and even Milton Keynes.
Yes Berkshire used to have much more pleasant places like Abingdon, Wantage & Farringdon. And berkshires county town used to be Abingdon till they re drew the boundaries and we lost them & gained slough
@dougdavidson175 no it's not. The UK is considered one of the safest countries to drive in, ranking among the top 30 worldwide. In 2020, the UK had 23 road deaths per million people, which was third in Europe behind Norway and Sweden, but lower than the EU average of 42. In 2022, the UK's road death rate was down 9.5% from 2012, with 25.89 deaths per million people.
My part of the world (I grew up in Bracknell, just by TRL). Thanks so much for letting me know you could walk part of the old test tracks as that’s exactly what I did when at my parents’ over Christmas Apparently Huntley & Palmers biscuit factory was the model for Henry Ford’s car assembly line. Also Slough Estates Group (SEGRO) is responsible for a number of office parks and distribution centres around the motorway network, developed using the profits from Slough
I live in Wokingham (Woosehill) and I can tell you we go everywhere except Wokingham because all there is is coffee shops and charity shops. If you want to do something decent, head to Bracknell or Reading. And yes that does show how poor Woky is when we call Bracknell ‘decent’
