Hungerford is a historic market town and civil parish in Berkshire, England, west of Newbury, east of Marlborough, north-east of Salisbury and 60 miles (97 km) west of London. The Kennet and Avon Canal passes through the town alongside the River Dun, a major tributary of the River Kennet. The confluence with the Kennet is to the north of the centre whence canal and river both continue east. Amenities include schools, shops, cafés, restaurants, and facilities for the main national sports. railway station is a minor stop on the Reading to Taunton Line.
History
Hungerford is derived from an Anglo-Saxon name meaning "ford leading to poor land". The town's symbol is the estoile and crescent moon. The place is not described in the Domesday Book of 1086 because four ancient manors each owned some property within Hungerford, a possession located at the extreme western edge of the royal manor of Kintbury, in the ancient hundred of Kintbury. The manor of Standen Hussey, described as Standen in Wiltshire in Domesday, was later in Hungerford parish. The land was granted to Robert de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Leicester. When he died in 1118, he passed his English estates, including Hungerford, to his son Robert and his heirs who encouraged the town's growth over the next 70 years.
By 1241, Hungerford called itself a borough. In the late 14th century, John of Gaunt was lord of the manor and he granted the people the lucrative fishing rights on the River Kennet. The family of Walter Hungerford, 1st Baron Hungerford originated in the town (c. 1450), although after three generations the title passed to Baroness Hungerford who married Sir Edward Hastings who became a Baron, and the family seat moved to Heytesbury, Wiltshire. In the 16th century, the parish of Hungerford was included in the formation of the hundred of Kintbury Eagle.
During the Civil War, the Earl of Essex and his army spent the night here in June 1644. In October of the same year, the Earl of Manchester’s cavalry were quartered in the town. Then, in the November, Charles I’s forces arrived in Hungerford on their way to Abingdon. During the Glorious Revolution of 1688, William of Orange was offered the Crown of England while staying at the Bear Inn in Hungerford. The Hungerford land south of the river Kennet was for centuries, until a widespread growth in cultivation in the area in the 18th century, in Savernake Forest.
1987 Massacre
The Hungerford massacre occurred on 19 August 1987. A 27-year-old unemployed local labourer, Michael Robert Ryan, armed with three weapons, including a Type 56 assault rifle, a Beretta pistol and an M1 carbine, shot and killed 16 people in and around the town – including his mother – and wounded 15 others, then killed himself in a local school after being surrounded by armed police. All his victims were shot in the town or in nearby Savernake Forest.
A report on the massacre was commissioned by Home Secretary Douglas Hurd from the Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police, Colin Smith. It is one of three highly costly firearms atrocities in terms of lives in the United Kingdom since the invention of such rapid fire weapons, the other two being the Dunblane massacre and Cumbria shootings. The massacre led to the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988, which banned the ownership of semi-automatic centre-fire rifles and restricted the use of shotguns with a magazine capacity of more than two rounds. The Hungerford Report had demonstrated that Ryan's collection of weapons was legally licensed.
Government
Hungerford is a civil parish, covering the town of Hungerford and a surrounding rural area, including the small village of Hungerford Newtown. The parish was divided into four tithings: Hungerford or Town, Sanden Fee, Eddington with Hidden and Newtown and Charnham Street. North and South Standen and Charnham Street were officially detached parts of Wiltshire until transferred to Berkshire in 1895. Leverton and Calcot were transferred to Hungerford parish from Chilton Foliat in Wiltshire in 1895. The parish shares boundaries with the Berkshire parishes of Lambourn, East Garston, Great Shefford, Kintbury and Inkpen, and with the Wiltshire parishes of Shalbourne, Froxfield, Ramsbury and Chilton Foliat. Parish council responsibilities are undertaken by Hungerford Town Council, which consists of fifteen volunteer councillors and committee members, supported by a full-time clerk. The mayor is elected from amongst their numbers.