Britwell Road, Didcot - 01235 812637 118 Broadway, Didcot - 01235 813243 council@didcot.gov.uk

Didcot dates back to the Iron Age. The settlement was situated on the ridge in the town, and the remainder of the surrounding area was marshland. In 1206, it was Dudecota, the cot (cottage) of Dudda.

The Romans attempted to drain the marshland by digging the ditch that runs north through what is now known as the Ladygrove area north of the town near Long Wittenham.

Didcot first appears in historical records in the 13th century as Dudcotte, Berkshire. The name is believed to be derived from that of the local abbot. Didcot was then a sleepy rural Berkshire village with a population of 100 or so and remained that way for hundreds of years, only occasionally cropping up in records. Parts of the original village still exist in the Lydalls Road area and part of All Saints' Church dates back to the 11th century. It was much smaller than several surrounding villages, which are now dwarfed by modern Didcot.

There are a number of major scientific employers nearby including the UKAEA at Culham (and the Joint European Torus (JET) fusion research project), Harwell Laboratory, the Science and Technology Facilities Council (the research council responsible for Rutherford Appleton Laboratory) and the Diamond Light Source synchrotron, which is the largest UK-funded scientific facility to be built for over 30 years. Didcot is also the base of operations for the Baptist Union of Great Britain and BMS World Mission.

Didcot also has a nature reserve, Mowbray Fields, where wildlife including a species of orchid[which?] can be found.

The Great Western Railway, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, reached Didcot in 1839. In 1844 the Brunel-designed Didcot railway station was opened. The original station burnt down in the later part of 19th century. The more obvious location for the original line to Bristol would have been the town of Abingdon a little further north, but the landowner, Lord Wantage, is reputed to have prevented the railway coming close to the town. This and the junction of the Great Western line to Oxford created the conditions for the future growth of Didcot. The station's name also finally fixed the spelling of Didcot.

Didcot's junction of the routes to London, Bristol, Oxford and to Southampton via the Didcot, Newbury and Southampton Railway made the town of strategic importance to military logistics, in particular during the First World War campaign on the Western Front and the Second World War preparations for D-Day. The Didcot, Newbury and Southampton line has since closed and the sites of the large Army and Royal Air Force ordnance depots that were built to serve these needs have disappeared beneath the power station and Milton Park Business Park. However the Army still has Vauxhall Barracks on the edge of town.

The DN&S Railway was engineered by John Fowler and built by contractors T.H. Falkiner and Sir Thomas Tancred, who together also constructed the Forth Bridge. Passenger trains between Didcot and Newbury were withdrawn in 1962. The line continued to be used by freight trains for a further five years, mainly oil traffic from the refinery at Fawley near Southampton. In 1967 this traffic also was withdrawn and the line was then dismantled. A section of the abandoned trackbed south of the town has views across the town and countryside and is popular with walkers.

After World War II technology changed, with steam locomotives becoming obsolete and the motor car becoming common. The station was renamed Didcot Parkway in 1985 and the site of the old GWR provender stores which had been demolished in 1976 (the provender pond was kept to maintain the water table) became a large car park so that the station would attract travellers from the surrounding area. The locomotive depot became the Didcot Railway Centre in 1967.