Coordinates: 51°36′43″N 1°38′28″W / 51.612°N 1.641°W
| Watchfield | |
 Westmill Wind Farm |
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  Watchfield
Watchfield shown within Oxfordshire |
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| OS grid reference | |
|---|---|
| Parish | Watchfield |
| District | Vale of White Horse |
| Shire county | Oxfordshire |
| Region | South East |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | Swindon |
| Postcode district | SN6 |
| Dialling code | 01793 |
| Police | Thames Valley |
| Fire | Oxfordshire |
| Ambulance | South Central |
| EU Parliament | South East England |
| UK Parliament | Wantage |
| List of places: UK • England • Oxfordshire | |
Watchfield is a village and civil parish, near Shrivenham and the A420, in the English county of Oxfordshire. In 1974 it was transferred from Berkshire.
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Character and amenities
Watchfield consists partly of military accommodation for the Joint Services Command and Staff College (JSCSC) and the Conflict Studies Research Centre (CSRC) in the parish, as well as for the Defence College of Management and Technology and Cranfield University across the boundary in Shrivenham.
Local amenities include the Eagle public house, located in the heart of the old village. Watchfield Post Office is located on the High Street. A purpose built mini-industrial estate near the A420 road houses the College Farm public house, a Midcounties Co-operative supermarket, a unisex hairdressers, opticians and a McDonald's.
A wind farm, owned by the community-owned Westmill Wind Farm Cooperative, came online in March 2008 and was formally opened in May 2008 on the site of the former RAF Watchfield near the village.[1][2] It consists of five 1.3 MW turbines, and is described by its promoters as the UK's largest community-owned wind farm.
Geography
As with nearby Shrivenham, a common element of confusion is that Watchfield has the Swindon postal code and Swindon telephone area code, despite being located in a different county: Oxfordshire rather than Wiltshire.
Watchfield Festival 1975
In August 1975, a disused military site at Watchfield became the location of a free rock festival attended by several thousand people. Among the musicians who performed there were Hawkwind and Vivian Stanshall. The site was offered to the organisers by the government as an alternative to the Windsor Free Festivals of the previous three years, the last of which had been forcibly terminated by the police in 1974.
The first Big Green Gathering festival was also held at Watchfield in 1994.
References
- ^ Energy4All Press Release, December 5, 2005, Westmill Wind Farm Celebrates Success of Public Share Launch. Retrieved on November 14, 2006. Archive copy at the Internet Archive
- ^ Energy4All Press Release, February 1, 2008. Fresh Wind Farm. Retrieved on March 8, 2008.
External links
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
