Culham
Culham
is a small, quiet, but otherwise unremarkable village
about a mile and a half south of Abingdon just off the
main Abingdon to Dorchester road, the A415. It lies wholely
within a bend in the River Thames adjacent to the Culham
Cut.
The
road through the village has pleasant mainly C19 and C20
houses, but the oldest part is clearly centred on the
Green at the western end. Just off the Green is the church,
St. Paul's, and the Manor House. St.Paul's Church is a
Victorian church built on the site of a former mediaeval
church. North of the Green, behind a high
brick wall, is Culham House, the largest house in the
village. Culham House was built about 1775 by John Phillips,
lay rector of the parish.
The village was at one time important for the Thames barges
carrying stone from the dissolved Abbey of Abingdon and
there was wharfage here where the stone was loaded onto
barges for transportation to London. The wharf and the
remains of the lock can still be seen as well as the assembly
pool for barges that lay near it. These were in the ditch
now known as Back Water, but then known as Swift Ditch.
Swift Ditch was at the time the main navigation channel
until 1790 when it was abandoned in favour of the main
channel through Abingdon.
Where the road from the village meets the main road the
old Culham Bridge still stands spanning the now insignifant
Back Water. The old bridge is built across the site of
the ancient ford known as Culham Hyth. At the other end
of the village near Sutton Bridge is Culham Lock, situated
in the Culham Cut which was constructed in 1809.
Outside the
village to the north of the main road are the research
establishments for which Culham is, perhaps, more well
known.
Culham Laboratory is home to two major nuclear fusion
experiments: JET, the Joint
European Torus, the world's largest conventional tokamak
(fusion reactor), and MAST,
a leading spherical tokamak. Culham is also home to the European
School which was set up by the
European Commission to provide an international
education for the children of Euratom scientists who would
come to work at JET.
Near the research establishments stand Culham
Station and The Railway Inn, now a tandoori restaurant.
