Amenities
Grove is a warm welcoming place in which to live.
All the service amenities can be found here in Grove. There is a health centre, doctors, dentists, chemists, day centre, post office, schools, both primary and nursery, and playgroups, also churches of several denominations. There are two well established shopping centres, meeting halls, public houses, a community centre and a large recreation ground with several football and rugby pitches, together with a `state of the art' wheeled sports track for the teenagers. Behind the Millbrook Square shops, the Mary Green play area caters for children and young people of all ages. There are also several youth clubs and all the usual clubs for the more sedate (WI, drama and indoor bowls etc).
Further afield we have access to several cinemas, theatres and museums, all within a fifteen mile radius with regular bus services available.
The world renowned Williams Formula 1 Racing Car team quickly took up the buildings vacated by Janssens Pharmaceuticals on the site occupied during world war two by the USAAF vehicle maintenance section. The firm's modern facility catches the eye of visitors arriving along the A338 from the north.
To the south of Grove the folds of the landscape ensure that the business areas of Grove do not intrude into the village itself, indeed the aircraft hangar which is the largest single building on the business park is all but invisible from anywhere beyond the extensive sports fields at the southern end of the village. The business park itself is highly individual, if not unique. Here the emphasis is on local firms and local employment. In the former laboratory buildings growing enterprises have the opportunity to acquire premises to suit their changing needs. Properties ranging from single-room offices to extensive factory floor space have been made available. Thames Business Advisory Centre in conjunction with Grove 2000 plc and an increasing number of local entrepreneurs have made use of the facilities to establish themselves away from the congestion, traffic problems and high costs of premises in the region's towns. The park gives a very real hope that more and more firms will come to realise the advantages of having premises close to the community and appreciate the benefits of avoiding the commuter queues into larger local towns. In many similar situations such expansion would have been at the expense of much-loved local features or age-old farmland, but here, land formerly used as part of the airfield has been used and virtue has grown from military necessity in a manner seen very seldom.
For those whose jobs require them to commute, the nearby railway offers another potential option. Although closed during the era of the `Beeching Axe' the former "Wantage Road" station just north of Grove may well reopen if the current negotiations bear fruit. This prospect brings with it the hope for a further reduction in the community's dependence on individual cars and the attendant problems of exhaust fumes and road congestion.
We have two local fairs, Grove Feast which is held at Grove Village Green in early July and one on Wasbrough Playing Fields in early May. There is also a May Day Fair on Grove Village Green each year.
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