Our Story
Caversham Park Village Association was founded on 1 December 1965 by some of the "early settlers" within the first 111 homes on Caversham Park Village. There are now over 1,500 homes.
Its aim was to establish a community organisation and build a community centre. Over 50 years later, that organisation is still going strong. The Milestone Centre became a reality, being opened a little over a decade later and was later added to by a squash centre and the youth and recreation building.
We offer a number of groups to join, some sporting and some more sedate! We also have the Caversham Park Village Social Club who have pool, darts, big screen sports events, parties or just somewhere to go to meet up for a quiet drink with friends.
History of Caversham Park Village
In January 1964, an exhibition was held in the Small Town Hall, Reading, to show people the ideas behind the proposed development at Caversham Park. A scale model, constructed by students at Nottingham University under the guidance of Professor Paul Ritter, was used to explain the 'Radburn' system of traffic segregation on which Caversham Park Village would be laid out.
Work had already begun on clearing the ground at the site, which was to be developed as a residential estate by Davis Estates Ltd., over the next five or six years. Since then, Caversham Park Village has grown to a housing estate of more than 1,500 homes.
London Evening Standard advert, April 1969 — Davis Estates enticing Londoners to move to Caversham Park Village.
"The Plank" (1967) starring Tommy Cooper & Eric Sykes was filmed on Elstow Avenue.
In April 1969, the London Evening Standard was carrying adverts from Davis Estates Limited enticing people to move out to Caversham Park Village and commute back to London — and it worked. Many people living here jump on the train to London each morning, as well as those working locally and commuting to Heathrow Airport.
It wasn't just architects who noticed Caversham Park Village. In 1967, the late, great Tommy Cooper and Eric Sykes starred in "The Plank" — a film about two blundering builders trying to finish the floor of a house. The house is on Elstow Avenue, one of the award-winning Dalkeith houses with sunken living room floors.
The Dalkeith houses won a design award in the late 1960s. Every house featured new-fangled cable television served by a communal aerial, gas-fired central heating, and distinctive picture windows — no frames, just two panes of glass overlapping in wooden grooves.
Caversham Park House
Caversham Park Village sits within the former grounds of Caversham Park House, which extended to include Clayfield Copse and was, until recently, home to the BBC's Monitoring Service. The house and estate have a rich history stretching back centuries.