The Pengilley Shopping Parade. Written by Eugene Coyle

Didcot has developed from a small railway town of less than 2,000 people in the 1920s to the largest town in South Oxfordshire with a population of just over 30,000 people.

The modern town of Didcot developed from the merger of very separate communities; the medieval village of Old Didcot, the urban railway settlement of North Hagbourne (now Northbourne), the small commercial development at the Didcot Station and the arrival of the Army in 1914 followed by the expansion of the Vauxhall Barracks.

Didcot’s interwar building programme was haphazard focusing only on housing.

Soon the need for shopping and services became of paramount importance.

Didcot at this time was a Berkshire town administered by Reading and Wantage District Councils and locally by Didcot Parish Council.

However, an application to build a shopping parade on Broadway faced strong opposition from local vested interests particularly from Didcot Parish Council.

Their original plan was the commercial development of the area near the station as the new Didcot Town Centre.

However, during 1920s with a move away to the Broadway from near the station by the two commercial banks followed by the Oxford Co-Operative Stores (the now derelict Labour Club) heralded the collapse of commercial life around the station.

Faced with opposition from the Didcot Traders Association, Reading Council agreed to allow for planning on Broadway for shops but not before they had granted permission for residential building on the southside of Broadway.

This decision is the reason why to this day only the northside of the Broadway has shops while the southside has substantial domestic residences.

In 1928 Didcot’s very first shopping parade was built by W. E. Pengilley and others in Lower Broadway.

The parade consisted of seven shopping units with generous residential accommodation overhead.

The council also insisted that the development must include a butcher, baker, grocer, greengrocer, dairyman, newsagent/confectioner and dispensing chemist.

The parade was formally opened by the Didcot Traders Association in December 1929, leading to the popular tradition over the following years of 'Didcot Shopping Week' before Christmas.

In 1939 the ‘Kelly's Directory of Berks, Bucks & Oxon’ listed sixty-six commercial outlets on Broadway.

These included the ‘Oxford Co-Operative and Industrial Store’ the biggest store on Broadway and a shopping bazaar ‘The Red Shop’ specialising in fabrics and jewellery.

Strolling down the Broadway, a Didcot shopper could buy fresh bread in a bakery, a new Baird ‘Televisor’ in one of the three electrical shops or a twenty-five shilling three piece suit from one of three men’s outfitters.

The success of W.H. Smith’s move to Broadway encouraged other chains such as Currys, International Tea Co. Stores, Millwards Stores and Boots (Chemists) all of whom opened for business on the Broadway during the late 1930s.

All were in open competition with well-established local traders like Bosely’s Garage for bicycles, wirelesses and general hardware and Warner’s for Pharmacy, cameras and photographic materials.

With the arrival of the Orchard Centre the shopping opportunities on the Broadway are changing.

However, the Broadway still retains its original character with shops on one side balanced by a leafy residential area.