Norcot

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Norcot is an area of Tilehurst and a ward of Reading in the English county of Berkshire.

[edit] Location and origins

Norcot ward is the south-eastern sector of the Reading borough portion of Tilehurst. However, as a suburban area, Norcot centres on Norcot Road and the upper Oxford Road on Norcot Hill. It is partly in Norcot ward and partly in Kentwood ward. The original hamlet was near the junction of Norcot Road and Romany Lane and was largely made up of Norcot Farm in the north-east of old Tilehurst parish. The name means 'North Cottage' and is thus twinned with Southcote, below Tilehurst church and manor. To the west of Norcot is Kentwood and to the east is Battle.

[edit] Notable buildings and structures

The Norcot Water Tower, built at the end of the 19th century, is somewhat older than the more prominent Tilehurst Water Tower. It is 50ft high and a listed building. Norcot School was built in 1906. In its lifetime, it was both a senior and a junior school. It closed in 1989. Like much of Tilehurst, Norcot Hill was used for the extraction of clay for brickmaking. In the 1920s, S. E. Collier's transported the clay via overhead cables to their main site in the Dee Road area of Tilehurst. St George's Church was built on the north-eastern edge of Norcot in 1886, largely to service the soldiers of the nearby Reading Barracks. Norcot has a Mission Church in Brockley Close. The post office is on the Oxford Road.