The area has evidence of occupation dating from
prehistoric times and was listed in the
Guinness Book of Records as the strongest claimant to being the oldest continuously inhabited place in
Britain. The well-preserved remains of a
Mesolithic settlement, dating from 8400 to 7700 BCE, when the Chapel of
St. Thomas the Martyr on the A4, now called the
Old Bluecoat School, was granted permission to hold services. At that time the population was larger than that of Newbury. There is a
Norman parish church of
St. Mary, which was largely reconstructed in 1857. This is believed to be built on the same site as an earlier
Anglo-Saxon church. It was previously known as
St. Luke's. The church is a Grade II* listed building. In 1121,
Henry I founded
Reading Abbey and endowed it with many gifts of land, including the
Manor of Thatcham. At the same time Thatcham
Hundred ceased to exist: the western part was transferred to Faircross Hundred, and the remainder to the Hundred of
Reading. In 1141 Thatcham church, previously the property of the
Diocese of Salisbury, was granted to Reading Abbey by the
Empress Matilda, who at the same time confirmed her father's gift of the manor to the abbey. During
World War II, Thatcham housed one of the biggest
Prisoner of War camps in the South, known as camp 1001. Thatcham's population grew rapidly in the second half of the 20th century: from 5,000 in 1951 and 7,500 in 1961 to 22,824 in 2001.
Floods On 20 July 2007, parts of Thatcham were flooded during a period of sustained heavy rain, during which three times the average July monthly rainfall hit the town in just 24 hours. While the rivers did not flood, the quantity of water flowing down the hills from Cold Ash and
Bucklebury made many roads impassable and stranded hundreds of pupils at
Kennet School who tried to wade with rope across Stoney Lane. About 1,100 properties were affected; many residents moved out into mobile homes. ==Institutions==