134-614: Theale ( / ˈ θ iː əl , ˈ θ iː l / ) is a village and civil parish in West Berkshire , England. It is 5 miles (8 km) southwest of Reading and 10 miles (16 km) east of Thatcham . The compact parish is bounded to the south and south-east by the Kennet & Avon Canal (which here incorporates the River Kennet ), to the north by a golf course, to the east by the M4 motorway and to
268-513: A London borough . (Since the new county was beforehand a mixture of metropolitan boroughs , municipal boroughs and urban districts, no extant parish councils were abolished.) In 1974, the Local Government Act 1972 retained rural parishes, but abolished most urban parishes, as well as the urban districts and boroughs which had administered them. Provision was made for smaller urban districts and boroughs to become successor parishes , with
402-510: A "manor", not actually legally functioning as one, called Beansheaf was in existence by 1390. This was named after a family farming land in the parish in the 13th century. The territory included Theale, but the manor-house was to the east of the present village and the site is now east of the M4, at the north end of Bourne Close. A housing estate in Holybrook parish preserves the name. Theale saw action in
536-515: A Special Expense, to residents of the unparished area to fund those activities. If the district council does not opt to make a Special Expenses charge, there is an element of double taxation of residents of parished areas, because services provided to residents of the unparished area are funded by council tax paid by residents of the whole district, rather than only by residents of the unparished area. Parish councils comprise volunteer councillors who are elected to serve for four years. Decisions of
670-576: A boundary coterminous with an existing urban district or borough or, if divided by a new district boundary, as much as was comprised in a single district. There were 300 such successor parishes established. In urban areas that were considered too large to be single parishes, the parishes were simply abolished, and they became unparished areas . The distinction between types of parish was no longer made; whether parishes continued by virtue of being retained rural parishes or were created as successor parishes, they were all simply termed parishes. The 1972 act allowed
804-585: A chapel in the village at 59 High Street about 1868, which survived until 1992. It was demolished for Beaumont House , but a stone plaque in the wall of this commemorates it. There is a public meeting hall run by the parish council , the John Cumber Hall, at 38a High Street . The village has its Recreation Ground on the Englefield Road. This is home to the Theale and Tilehurst Cricket Club which play in
938-472: A city council (though most cities are not parishes but principal areas, or in England specifically metropolitan boroughs or non-metropolitan districts ). The chairman of a town council will have the title "town mayor" and that of a parish council which is a city will usually have the title of mayor . When a city or town has been abolished as a borough, and it is considered desirable to maintain continuity of
1072-456: A city council. According to the Department for Communities and Local Government , in England in 2011 there were 9,946 parishes. Since 1997 around 100 new civil parishes have been created, in some cases by splitting existing civil parishes, but mostly by creating new ones from unparished areas. Parish or town councils have very few statutory duties (things they are required to do by law) but have
1206-548: A city was Hereford , whose city council was merged in 1998 to form a unitary Herefordshire . The area of the city of Hereford remained unparished until 2000 when a parish council was created for the city. As another example, the charter trustees for the City of Bath make up the majority of the councillors on Bath and North East Somerset Council. Civil parishes cover 35% of England's population, with one in Greater London and few in
1340-481: A civil parish which has no parish council, the parish meeting may levy a council tax precept for expenditure relating to specific functions, powers and rights which have been conferred on it by legislation. In places where there is no civil parish ( unparished areas ), the administration of the activities normally undertaken by the parish becomes the responsibility of the district or borough council. The district council may make an additional council tax charge, known as
1474-571: A cruiseway, a waterway devoted to recreational boat traffic, since 2011. On 21 December 1847, the Great Western Railway opened Theale railway station on the northern branch of the Berks and Hants Railway , from Reading to Hungerford . This immediately halted the coach traffic and the turnpike road company's income, and crippled the canal company which had to slash rates and be henceforth content with limited local traffic. The canal sold out to
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#17328523879201608-522: A minimum of 800 men, were also killed, and were buried on the spot in Deadman's Lane. The Royalist forces retreated, and the Earl left Theale on the morning of 23 September, heading to Reading where his forces recovered from fatigue. Thomas Fairfax marched through Theale on 1 May 1645, en route from Windsor to Salisbury . Evidence for the encounter came to light in 1878, when a sword with the remains of an iron hilt
1742-517: A new code. In either case the code must comply with the Nolan Principles of Public Life . A parish can be granted city status by the Crown . As of 2020 , eight parishes in England have city status, each having a long-established Anglican cathedral: Chichester , Ely , Hereford , Lichfield , Ripon , Salisbury , Truro and Wells . The council of an ungrouped parish may pass a resolution giving
1876-431: A new smaller manor, there was a means of making a chapel which, if generating or endowed with enough funds, would generally justify foundation of a parish, with its own parish priest (and in latter centuries vestry ). This consistency was a result of canon law which prized the status quo in issues between local churches and so made boundary changes and sub-division difficult. The consistency of these boundaries until
2010-681: A parish (a "detached part") was in a different county . In other cases, counties surrounded a whole parish meaning it was in an unconnected, "alien" county. These anomalies resulted in a highly localised difference in applicable representatives on the national level , justices of the peace , sheriffs, bailiffs with inconvenience to the inhabitants. If a parish was split then churchwardens, highway wardens and constables would also spend more time or money travelling large distances. Some parishes straddled two or more counties, such as Todmorden in Lancashire and Yorkshire. Goring Priory Goring Priory
2144-416: A parish council, and instead will only have a parish meeting : an example of direct democracy . Alternatively several small parishes can be grouped together and share a common parish council, or even a common parish meeting. A parish council may decide to call itself a town council, village council, community council, neighbourhood council, or if the parish has city status, the parish council may call itself
2278-431: A population in excess of 100,000 . This scope is similar to that of municipalities in continental Europe, such as the communes of France . However, unlike their continental European counterparts, parish councils are not principal authorities , and in most cases have a relatively minor role in local government. As of September 2023 , there are 10,464 parishes in England, and in 2020 they covered approximately 40% of
2412-503: A population of between 100 and 300 could request their county council to establish a parish council. Provision was also made for a grouped parish council to be established covering two or more rural parishes. In such groups, each parish retained its own parish meeting which could vote to leave the group, but otherwise the grouped parish council acted across the combined area of the parishes included. Urban civil parishes were not given their own parish councils, but were directly administered by
2546-461: A railway was a disaster. This is shown by successive editions of the Ordnance Survey , which show that the village entered stasis and did not grow until the 20th century. From 1847 to the early years of the 20th century, the village had to make do economically with local farming, a brewery and gravel extraction. The last named was, however, greatly facilitated by the railway and a large pit near
2680-1079: A range of discretionary powers which they may exercise voluntarily. These powers have been defined by various pieces of legislation. The role they play can vary significantly depending on the size, resources and ability of the council, but their activities can include any of the following: Parish councils have powers to provide and manage various local facilities; these can include allotments , cemeteries, parks, playgrounds, playing fields and village greens , village halls or community centres , bus shelters, street lighting, roadside verges, car parks, footpaths, litter bins and war memorials. Larger parish councils may also be involved in running markets , public toilets and public clocks, museums and leisure centres . Parish councils may spend money on various things they deem to be beneficial to their communities, such as providing grants to local community groups or local projects, or fund things such as public events, crime prevention measures, community transport schemes, traffic calming or tourism promotion. Parish councils have
2814-409: A role in the planning system; they have a statutory right to be consulted on any planning applications in their areas. They may also produce a neighbourhood plan to influence local development. The Localism Act 2011 allowed eligible parish councils to be granted a " general power of competence " which allows them within certain limits the freedom to do anything an individual can do provided it
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#17328523879202948-460: A secret room in The Old Lamb inn on Church Street on numerous occasions. In 1802, topographer James Baker chronicled the village, en route from Reading to Newbury , and described it as "inconsiderable". However, the wealth engendered by a continued growth in road traffic meant that the village entered its most prosperous era, expanding substantially in the earlier 19th century before the arrival of
3082-558: A series of large lakes. There is no extractive activity in the parish now. The Old Gravel Pit in the village was already attracting the attention of birdwatchers by 1935. The flooded workings attracted much bird life, including rarities, and became nationally famous as a birdwatching destination. The Theale cluster comprised the Wigmore Lane Gravel Pits, Bottom Lane Gravel Pits, Hosehill Pit, Theale Main Pit and Arrow Head Pit. In 1988,
3216-589: A set number of guardians for each parish, hence a final purpose of urban civil parishes. With the abolition of the Poor Law system in 1930, urban parishes became a geographical division only with no administrative power; that was exercised at the urban district or borough council level. In 1965 civil parishes in London were formally abolished when Greater London was created, as the legislative framework for Greater London did not make provision for any local government body below
3350-518: A small housing estate called Lambfields. This was built in the 1920s, the first in the village, and features high-quality tile-hung semi-detached houses in a vernacular style. Before the 20th century, Blossoms Lane ran to a hamlet called Blossoms End and ended at Blossomsend Farm, now a golf course. The road is now Crown Lane, leading to Blossom Lane. The High Street conservation area includes Crown Lane and lower Blossom Lane, protecting Victorian houses with polychrome brickwork. Station Road leads through
3484-938: A small village or town ward to a large tract of mostly uninhabited moorland in the Cheviots, Pennines or Dartmoor. The two largest as at December 2023 are Stanhope (County Durham) at 98.6 square miles (255 km ), and Dartmoor Forest (Devon) at 79.07 square miles (204.8 km ). The two smallest are parcels of shared rural land: Lands Common to Axminster and Kilmington (Devon) at 0.012 square miles (0.031 km ; 3.1 ha; 7.7 acres), and Lands Common to Brancepeth and Brandon and Byshottles (County Durham) at 0.0165 square miles (0.043 km ; 4.3 ha; 10.6 acres). The next two smallest are parishes in built up areas: Chester Castle (Cheshire) at 0.0168 square miles (0.044 km ; 4.4 ha; 10.8 acres) (no recorded population) and Hamilton Lea (Leicestershire) at 0.07 square miles (0.18 km ; 18 ha; 45 acres) (1,021 residents at
3618-514: A spur to the creation of new parishes in some larger towns which were previously unparished, in order to retain a local tier of government; examples include Shrewsbury (2009), Salisbury (2009), Crewe (2013) and Weymouth (2019). In 2003 seven new parish councils were set up for Burton upon Trent , and in 2001 the Milton Keynes urban area became entirely parished, with ten new parishes being created. Parishes can also be abolished where there
3752-432: A station upgrade was begun. The goods siding was replaced by a third platform on a new loop of track, and a car park for 215 places provided. Unfortunately, the project then stalled for legal reasons after all the old buildings had been demolished, and the completion date is estimated as 2024. Meanwhile, there is no disabled access because the platforms can only be reached via stairs from the road bridge. Trains are operated by
3886-464: A time when Theale was still part of Tilehurst Parish . He held the advowson of Tilehurst church, and so had the authority to order this. The chapel was built of brick, had a bellcote , and was situated to the south-west of the present church., So, for almost a decade two chapel edifices stood near to each other. Holy Trinity Church, is a Church of England parish church in the Diocese of Oxford . It
4020-483: A trust fund generating £20 a year for a school "to learn poor children to read …and to instruct them their duty to God as taught by the church catechism, and our excellent Liturgy", as he wrote. The school had occupied the same site next to the church from 1833 but in 2018 the parish council approved plans by West Berkshire Council to build a larger school on part of the North Street playing fields. The new school opened in
4154-554: A wide flood plain, but these were dug out in the 20th century for gravel extraction and so replaced by a mosaic of lakes. The south-east and south boundary of the parish is now the canal. Just the other side, in Burghfield and Sulhamstead parishes, one of these lakes is now a Local nature reserve called Hosehill Lake . Theale village has one lake within its residential built-up area to the far west, with privately owned houses flanking it on its north side but recreational walking possible to
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4288-491: Is a conservation area. Listed buildings earlier in date are 1, 4, 29, 31, 33, 35, 37, 43–5, 47, 48, 49, 50, 52, 58, 60. Of these, seventeenth-century timber framed buildings are 29, 33, 35 and 52; the others are Georgian or Regency . 29, 31 and 47 are old coaching inns (31 still open as The Falcon). 49 has an unusual Gothic door-case. Before the 20th century, Church Street was not completely built up but had clusters of buildings separated by paddocks . The village ended at
4422-401: Is a former Second World War RAF training facility located on Sheffield Farm, just east of the canal swing bridge, and actually in Burghfield parish. It was opened in 1944, with two grass runways, and used for training by No. 26 Elementary Flying Training School, and, later in the same year, by No. 128 Gliding School. The training school used twenty-four de Havilland Tiger Moths . The canal by
4556-507: Is at present the only part of England where civil parishes cannot be created. If enough electors in the area of a proposed new parish (ranging from 50% in an area with less than 500 electors to 10% in one with more than 2,500) sign a petition demanding its creation, then the local district council or unitary authority must consider the proposal. Since the beginning of the 21st century, numerous parish councils have been created, including some relatively large urban ones. The main driver has been
4690-413: Is covered with alluvium, over beds of more gravel. The loam occurs where chalk and clay have weathered together. There have been narrow peat marshes along the river, marking the locations of former oxbow lakes . Samples of ochra purpurco-rubra, a purple-red type of ochre used by painters, have been found in clay pits in the village. This is a form of haematite iron ore . Theale before the 20th century
4824-539: Is evidence that this is in response to "justified, clear and sustained local support" from the area's inhabitants. Examples are Birtley , which was abolished in 2006, and Southsea , abolished in 2010. Every civil parish has a parish meeting, which all the electors of the parish are entitled to attend. Generally a meeting is held once a year. A civil parish may have a parish council which exercises various local responsibilities prescribed by statute. Parishes with fewer than 200 electors are usually deemed too small to have
4958-405: Is not prohibited by other legislation, as opposed to being limited to the powers explicitly granted to them by law. To be eligible for this, a parish council must meet certain conditions such as having a clerk with suitable qualifications. Parish councils receive funding by levying a " precept " on the council tax paid by the residents of the parish (or parishes) served by the parish council. In
5092-607: Is the Old Lamb, a former coaching inn which is now a hotel. It is the only thatched building in Theale, and is a 17th-century timber-framed edifice abutted by a large early 19th-century annexe. Dick Turpin stayed here and there is allegedly a ghost, but Historic England rejects the date of 1487 painted on the façade. The Old Lamb is easily confused with the Lamb next door at number 22, a pub in polychrome brickwork which closed down in 2012. The Old Lamb has its own conservation area, which includes
5226-504: The 'Standards Board regime' with local monitoring by district, unitary or equivalent authorities. Under new regulations which came into effect in 2012 all parish councils in England are required to adopt a code of conduct with which parish councillors must comply, and to promote and maintain high standards. A new criminal offence of failing to comply with statutory requirements was introduced. More than one 'model code' has been published, and councils are free to modify an existing code or adopt
5360-706: The Bridge House Inn is defunct. The canal towpath is a statutory footpath , and also part of the Sustrans National Cycle Route 4 of the National Cycle Network , a long-distance cycle route from London to Fishguard in Wales . The towpath is not a statutory bridle path and has no horses. The village has a Church of England primary school , founded in 1814, when the Rev. Thomas Sheppard bequeathed
5494-594: The Christ Child on her lap. House of Austin nuns: The priory of Goring , in William Page (ed.), A History of the County of Oxford, vol. 2 , London, 1907, pp. 103–104. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/oxon/vol2/pp103-104 [accessed 21 October 2017]. This article about an Oxfordshire building or structure is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article about
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5628-665: The English Civil War , (1642–51). On 22 September 1643, soon after the First Battle of Newbury , the village was the site of a skirmish between Prince Rupert 's Royalist forces and the Earl of Essex 's Parliamentarians . Rupert attacked the Earl's forces from the rear as they were returning to London. According to contemporary reports, the Earl's forces – led by Colonel Middleton – held strong; up to 800 Royalist musketeers and 60 horses were killed, and at least eight Parliamentarian units,
5762-484: The Great Western Railway , and comprise a basic service of two trains an hour. One is a local Reading - Newbury , and one is a through London Paddington - Bedwyn . After the opening of the M4 motorway removed all long-distance bus and coach traffic in 1971, the village's bus services consisted of a direct Reading to Newbury route, along the A4 road , and village routes between the same two towns running north and south of
5896-1010: The Local Government Act 1894 ( 56 & 57 Vict. c. 73) to become the smallest geographical area for local government in rural areas. The act abolished the civil (non-ecclesiastical) duties of vestries . Parishes which straddled county boundaries or sanitary districts had to be split so that the part in each urban or rural sanitary district became a separate parish (see List of county exclaves in England and Wales 1844–1974 ). The sanitary districts were then reconstituted as urban districts and rural districts , with parishes that fell within urban districts classed as urban parishes, and parishes that fell within rural districts were classed as rural parishes. The 1894 act established elected civil parish councils as to all rural parishes with more than 300 electors, and established annual parish meetings in all rural parishes. Civil parishes were grouped to form either rural or urban districts which are thereafter classified as either type. The parish meetings for parishes with
6030-615: The Newbury area. The Newbury & District Bus Company , then owned by Weavaway Travel , took these on. Also, the Reading firm contracted Weavaway to run "Jetblack" -although without changing the bus livery. In 2018, Reading Buses took over Newbury & District Bus , and again dropped the village services. These were recast and reduced, being taken on by the West Berkshire Council Transport Services Team under
6164-631: The Thames Valley Cricket League . Here also is the main village hall , home to the Theale Club which is a social club with a bar. A small skatepark is located here. The North Street Playing Fields is a separate location on the other side of the road. It is used by the Theale Tigers Youth Football Club, but part of it was released for a new primary school in 2018. The Theale Golf Club has an 18-hole golf course to
6298-472: The break with Rome , parishes managed ecclesiastical matters, while the manor was the principal unit of local administration and justice. Later, the church replaced the manor court as the rural administrative centre, and levied a local tax on produce known as a tithe . In the medieval period, responsibilities such as relief of the poor passed increasingly from the lord of the manor to the parish's rector , who in practice would delegate tasks among his vestry or
6432-588: The lord of the manor , but not all were willing and able to provide, so residents would be expected to attend the church of the nearest manor with a church. Later, the churches and priests became to a greater extent the responsibility of the Catholic Church thus this was formalised; the grouping of manors into one parish was recorded, as was a manor-parish existing in its own right. Boundaries changed little, and for centuries after 1180 'froze', despite changes to manors' extents. However, by subinfeudation , making
6566-403: The monarch ). A civil parish may be equally known as and confirmed as a town, village, neighbourhood or community by resolution of its parish council, a right not conferred on other units of English local government. The governing body of a civil parish is usually an elected parish council (which can decide to call itself a town, village, community or neighbourhood council, or a city council if
6700-478: The nunnery of Goring Priory at Goring-on-Thames . This monastery also owned the adjacent manor of Sulham . In the 19th century, villager A. Harrison of the Berkshire Local History Club wrote that the chapel was on the same site as the current church, and that it had some connection with Englefield church. The club was a private antiquarian society, the members of which passed notes about
6834-463: The (often well-endowed) monasteries. After the dissolution of the monasteries , the power to levy a rate to fund relief of the poor was conferred on the parish authorities by the Poor Relief Act 1601 . Both before and after this optional social change, local (vestry-administered) charities are well-documented. The parish authorities were known as vestries and consisted of all the ratepayers of
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#17328523879206968-403: The 19th century and are now entirely separate. Civil parishes in their modern form came into being through the Local Government Act 1894 ( 56 & 57 Vict. c. 73), which established elected parish councils to take on the secular functions of the parish vestry . A civil parish can range in size from a sparsely populated rural area with fewer than a hundred inhabitants, to a large town with
7102-564: The 19th century is useful to historians, and is also of cultural significance in terms of shaping local identities; reinforced by the use of grouped parish boundaries, often, by successive local authority areas; and in a very rough, operations-geared way by most postcode districts. There was (and is) wide disparity in parish size. Writtle , Essex traditionally measures 13,568 acres (21 sq mi) – two parishes neighbouring are Shellow Bowells at 469 acres (0.7 sq mi), and Chignall Smealy at 476 acres (0.7 sq mi) Until
7236-584: The 2011 census, Newland with Woodhouse Moor and Beaumont Chase reported inhabitants, and there were no new deserted parishes recorded. Nearly all instances of detached parts of civil parishes (areas not contiguous with the main part of the parish) and of those straddling counties have been ended. 14 examples remain in England as at 2022, including Barnby Moor and Wallingwells , both in Nottinghamshire. Direct predecessors of civil parishes are most often known as "ancient parishes", although many date only from
7370-505: The 2021 census). The 2001 census recorded several parishes with no inhabitants. These were Chester Castle (in the middle of Chester city centre), Newland with Woodhouse Moor , Beaumont Chase , Martinsthorpe , Meering , Stanground North (subsequently abolished), Sturston , Tottington , and Tyneham (subsequently merged). The lands of the last three were taken over by the Armed Forces during World War II and remain deserted. In
7504-578: The Bath Road, though by the 1840s, the success of the Great Western Railway had considerably reduced the volume of custom the inns received. In 1843, writing about the effect of the railway on local business and environment, J G Robertson hypothesised that "it is probable that, in a few months, the completion of the Great Western Railway will totally annihilate the agreeable variety, and the hanging woods of Englefield and Beenham will no longer echo back
7638-595: The Bell Savage Inn on Ludgate Hill in London and the White Lion Inn at Bath, at both which places they may be received in a Stage Coach every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, which performs the whole journey in Three Days (if God permit), and sets forth at five in the morning. Passengers to pay One Pound five Shillings each. In response to increased traffic, the first section of the Bath Road, between Reading and Theale,
7772-565: The English population. For historical reasons, civil parishes predominantly cover rural areas and smaller urban areas, with most larger urban areas being wholly or partly unparished ; but since 1997 it has been possible for civil parishes to be created within unparished areas if demanded by local residents . In 2007 the right to create civil parishes was extended to London boroughs , although only one, Queen's Park , has so far been created. Eight parishes also have city status (a status granted by
7906-535: The Main Gravel Pit. Civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government . It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes , which for centuries were the principal unit of secular and religious administration in most of England and Wales. Civil and religious parishes were formally split into two types in
8040-603: The Theale Area Bird Conservation Group was founded, and in 1997 this took over the abandoned Hosehill Pit which became a local nature reserve under the name of Hosehill Lake . This is now under the management of the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust . The car showroom on the corner of Church Street and Station Road is run by Theale Motor Company, a descendant of a very early garage and car repair business. The Theale Motor and Engineering Co
8174-724: The administration of the poor laws was the main civil function of parishes, the Poor Law Amendment Act 1866 , which received royal assent on 10 August 1866, declared all areas that levied a separate rate or had their own overseer of the poor to be parishes. This included the Church of England parishes (until then simply known as "parishes"), extra-parochial areas , townships and chapelries . To have collected rates this means these beforehand had their own vestries, boards or equivalent bodies. Parishes using this definition subsequently became known as "civil parishes" to distinguish them from
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#17328523879208308-402: The airfield was fortified with pillboxes , one of which is a listed building . After the opening of the railway, the next major change for the village was the opening of the M4 motorway on 22 December 1971. The High Street went from having an enormous amount of traffic passing through, to none. Junction 12 on the motorway was built just east of the village. The old road was cut and a footbridge
8442-419: The banner of Connect . The services are: 41 Newbury to Theale (Crown) via Chapel Row and Beenham , two to Theale and one from Theale daily, and 44 Thatcham to Calcot Sainsburys via Brimpton and Theale, one journey Mondays and Wednesdays. Theale has two football bus services, running when Reading Football Club are playing at home at Madejski Stadium . F20 passes through from Newbury, and F23 starts in
8576-585: The bridge, although the Fox and Hounds pub at Sheffield Bottom further on has a Theale postal address. The smallest listed building in Theale is on the A340 just south of the Bradfield Road crossroads. It is an 18th-century milestone in the form of a short column, reading "TO BASINGSTOKE 15; TO WALLINGFORD 13; TO OXFORD 26". Theale has long been associated with pubs and the brewing trade. Many coaching inns were established on
8710-549: The buildings in the High Street were 17th century, a total of 32 buildings in the parish were given listed building status. All are Grade II, except the church, which is Grade I, and Garston Lock , Grade II*. Until 1894, Theale was a chapelry and tithing territory in the parish of Tilehurst. Then, Theale civil parish was created. The new parish was included in Bradfield Rural District Council. However, in 1974
8844-399: The charter, the charter may be transferred to a parish council for its area. Where there is no such parish council, the district council may appoint charter trustees to whom the charter and the arms of the former borough will belong. The charter trustees (who consist of the councillor or councillors for the area of the former borough) maintain traditions such as mayoralty . An example of such
8978-415: The church at Englefield. There is circumstantial evidence of a readjustment of boundaries between Sulham, Englefield and Tilehurst parishes and the possible transfer of Theale in the earlier Middle Ages. In the later Middle Ages, the abbey leased out many of its properties to ensure a cash income at a time when the economy was becoming increasingly cash-driven. The large manor of Tilehurst was subdivided, and
9112-529: The council are carried out by a paid officer, typically known as a parish clerk. Councils may employ additional people (including bodies corporate, provided where necessary, by tender) to carry out specific tasks dictated by the council. Some councils have chosen to pay their elected members an allowance, as permitted under part 5 of the Local Authorities (Members' Allowances) (England) Regulations 2003. The number of councillors varies roughly in proportion to
9246-464: The council of the urban district or borough in which they were contained. Many urban parishes were coterminous (geographically identical) with the urban district or municipal borough in which they lay. Towns which included multiple urban parishes often consolidated the urban parishes into one. The urban parishes continued to be used as an electoral area for electing guardians to the poor law unions . The unions took in areas in multiple parishes and had
9380-466: The council will an election be held. However, sometimes there are fewer candidates than seats. When this happens, the vacant seats have to be filled by co-option by the council. If a vacancy arises for a seat mid-term, an election is only held if a certain number (usually ten) of parish residents request an election. Otherwise the council will co-opt someone to be the replacement councillor. The Localism Act 2011 introduced new arrangements which replaced
9514-511: The creation of town and parish councils is encouraged in unparished areas . The Local Government and Rating Act 1997 created a procedure which gave residents in unparished areas the right to demand that a new parish and parish council be created. This right was extended to London boroughs by the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 – with this, the City of London
9648-497: The death of Harold Blatch, the last chief executive officer of the family, in 1965. His heirs immediately sold out to Allied Breweries trading as Ind Coope in 1965, and the beer brands were terminated. The brewery buildings were not sold and some survive, converted to offices, as Brewery Court. The company offices were at 43 High Street, a listed building, and the Bull tap house adjacent is now owned by Wadworth Brewery. Local competition in
9782-463: The desire to have a more local tier of government when new larger authorities have been created, which are felt to be remote from local concerns and identity. A number of parishes have been created in places which used to have their own borough or district council; examples include Daventry (2003), Folkestone (2004), Kidderminster (2015) and Sutton Coldfield (2016). The trend towards the creation of geographically large unitary authorities has been
9916-439: The ecclesiastical parishes. The Church of England parishes, which cover more than 99% of England, have become officially (and to avoid ambiguity) termed ecclesiastical parishes . The limits of many of these have diverged; most greatly through changes in population and church attendance (these factors can cause churches to be opened or closed). Since 1921, each has been the responsibility of its own parochial church council . In
10050-521: The established English Church, which for a few years after Henry VIII alternated between the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England , before settling on the latter on the accession of Elizabeth I in 1558. By the 18th century, religious membership was becoming more fractured in some places, due in part to the progress of Methodism . The legitimacy of the parish vestry came into question, and
10184-577: The focus of its own conservation area. Church Street continues beyond the church to the Theale Church of England Primary School , the library, Theale Green School and the St John Ambulance Centre. Listed buildings] are 1–3, 2, 18-20 27, 29 and 49. No 2 is the Crown Inn, a heavily altered 17th-century coaching inn formerly with a coach horse paddock opposite, where a car dealer now is. 18-20
10318-511: The foundation of the Anglo-Saxon borough of Reading in the 8th century. The Anglo-Saxons had abandoned Calleva Atrebatum, but the north to south route remained important to them as connecting the royal capital of Winchester with the boroughs of Old Basing near Basingstoke and Wallingford . From the early Middle Ages to the 19th century, Theale was mostly part of Tilehurst parish. The old parish boundaries around here were complicated, and
10452-455: The government at the time of the Local Government Act 1972 discouraged their creation for large towns or their suburbs, but there is generally nothing to stop their establishment. For example, Birmingham has two parishes ( New Frankley and Sutton Coldfield ), Oxford has four, and the Milton Keynes urban area has 24. Parishes could not however be established in London until the law was changed in 2007. A civil parish can range in area from
10586-683: The hamlet of Theale Green. Englefield Road branches north-westwards before the church, leading to the health centre, the Roman Catholic church and the Englefied Estate office at the junction with Deadman's Lane. The church, churchyard wall, churchyard gate, the Old Rectory , the Old Rectory Cottage (former coach house) and the Webb Tomb in the churchyard are all listed buildings. The church is
10720-598: The history of their respective localities to each other. In 1542, after Henry VIII 's dissolution of the monasteries , the chapel was granted to Sir Leonard Chamberlain (the High Sheriff of Berkshire ) and to Richard Andrews. The following year, it was transferred to the Burgoyne family by Chamberlain and Richard Hayles. In 1545 the Burgoyne family sold the chapel to Richard Bartlett, who in turn sold it to Humphrey Forster of Aldermaston in 1587. In 1609, Forster's son sold
10854-449: The home of Alfred Harmsworth who sponsored the event. Calcot Park was then just north of Theale parish. For the next seventy years, all the motor traffic between London, Reading and Bristol passed along Theale High Street. The development response was slow, however, and only two small housing estates were developed in the inter-war period. The first was Lambfields west of the church, and the second comprised Blossom Avenue and The Crescent in
10988-461: The industrial and commercial area, under the 1971 bypass bridge to the railway station, then on to the swing bridge over the canal at the Sheffield Bridge conservation area. This contains Sheffield Mill, Sheffield Lock and a pillbox, all listed. This lock has unusual scalloped walls. Garston Lock, to the east is Grade II* listed because it is a very rare turf-sided lock . The parish boundary is at
11122-551: The known alignment from Silchester to near Ufton Nervet indicates a crossing point of the River Kennet just east of Tylemill Bridge. This Roman road has its equivalent in the modern A340 from Theale to Pangbourne . Roman remains were uncovered during the excavation of the Theale Old Gravel Pit, at the end of St Ives Close, for ten years after 1887. The Kennet Valley route, later the Bath Road, only became important after
11256-471: The late 19th century, most of the "ancient" (a legal term equivalent to time immemorial ) irregularities inherited by the civil parish system were cleaned up, and the majority of exclaves were abolished. The census of 1911 noted that 8,322 (58%) of "parishes" in England and Wales were not geographically identical when comparing the civil to the ecclesiastical form. In 1894, civil parishes were reformed by
11390-544: The main course at Sheffield Mill and rejoined it at Reading Abbey . The name was allegedly because the abbey used the brook to power its corn mill and flush its toilets, and so engineered its course to ensure a good head of water. From before 1241 until the 1800s, Theale, unusually, gave its name to the hundred containing the parishes of Aldermaston , Bradfield , Burghfield , Englefield, Padworth , Purley , Stratfield Mortimer , Sulham , Sulhamstead Bannister , Tidmarsh , Ufton Nervet and Woolhampton . The oddity of this
11524-506: The main road west of Theale. These were operated by Reading Buses , the village ones being public services receiving a council subsidy. The direct route is covered by the "Jet Black" bus service, instigated by Reading Buses between Newbury and Reading along the A4 road; the journey time is about 50 minutes to Newbury and 30 to Reading, with two buses an hour being the basic service. In 2011, Reading Buses withdrew from providing subsidised services in
11658-488: The material comes from other sources. The gravel under the alluvium of the river valley was massively exploited after the Second World War , with a peak of activity in the 1950s, with intensive gravel extraction along the River Kennet, which created a series of huge pits south of the railway, four miles long from south of the A340 junction to the railway to Basingstoke. These filled up with water after exhaustion, and became
11792-465: The mid 19th century. Using a longer historical lens the better terms are "pre-separation (civil and ecclesiastical) parish", "original medieval parishes" and "new parishes". The Victoria County History , a landmark collaborative work mostly written in the 20th century (although incomplete), summarises the history of each English "parish", roughly meaning late medieval parish. A minority of these had exclaves , which could be: In some cases an exclave of
11926-452: The motorway on this leads to the village on the right via Hoad Way, and Arlington Business Park on the left via Waterside Drive. There is a Pay and display car park off the High Street , just east of the junction with Hoad Way. The Kennet and Avon Canal is a statutory "cruiseway" for recreational boat traffic. Sheffield Bridge has a car park and picnic area, but no other facilities as
12060-465: The new district councils (outside London) to review their parishes, and many areas left unparished in 1972 have since been made parishes, either in whole or part. For example, Hinckley , whilst entirely unparished in 1974, now has four civil parishes, which together cover part of its area, whilst the central part of the town remains unparished. Some parishes were sub-divided into smaller territories known as hamlets , tithings or townships . Nowadays
12194-553: The nocturnal challenge of the mail-guard's horn". By 1854, the village's old coaching inns had either closed down or become ordinary inns and pubs. The survivors were: the White Hart, on the eastern outskirts, at Pincents Lane, and demolished in 1969; the Bull; the Falcon; the Castle and the Crown. The Castle vanished in 1907. In 1939, only the Crown was offering accommodation. On the other hand,
12328-461: The north of the village, the club house being approached via a driveway from Englefield Road. It was laid out in 1996. "Pay and Play" is available, as are day tickets and twilight rates. Dr Ellerton's Charity Allotments are a large set of allotments off Meadow Way. They were established by a private charity, Dr Ellerton's Charity which was founded in 1899 to help poor people in the parish. Theale Water Sports Club has power- boating and waterskiing on
12462-434: The north. Lambfields was named after the Old Lamb inn. The Kennet Navigation opened in 1723 from Reading to Newbury. The Kennet and Avon Canal, extending from Newbury to Bath, was opened in 1810. Theale had its wharf at a location called Sheffield, in Burghfield parish and next to Sheffield Lock . Here, the road to Burghfield village crosses the canal by a single-lane swing bridge , now controlled by traffic lights. The canal
12596-488: The other conurbations. Civil parishes vary greatly in population: some have populations below 100 and have no settlement larger than a hamlet , while others cover towns with populations of tens of thousands. Weston-super-Mare , with a population of 71,758, is the most populous civil parish. In many cases small settlements, today popularly termed villages , localities or suburbs, are in a single parish which originally had one church. Large urban areas are mostly unparished, as
12730-448: The parish has city status). Alternatively, in parishes with small populations (typically fewer than 150 electors) governance may be by a parish meeting which all electors may attend; alternatively, parishes with small populations may be grouped with one or more neighbours under a common parish council. Wales was also divided into civil parishes until 1974, when they were replaced by communities , which are similar to English parishes in
12864-401: The parish the status of a town, at which point the council becomes a town council . Around 400 parish councils are called town councils. Under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 , a civil parish may be given one of the following alternative styles: As a result, a parish council can be called a town council, a community council, a village council or occasionally
12998-404: The parish. As the number of ratepayers of some parishes grew, it became increasingly difficult to convene meetings as an open vestry. In some, mostly built-up, areas the select vestry took over responsibility from the entire body of ratepayers. This innovation improved efficiency, but allowed governance by a self-perpetuating elite. The administration of the parish system relied on the monopoly of
13132-562: The parish; the church rate ceased to be levied in many parishes and became voluntary from 1868. During the 17th century it was found that the 1601 Poor Law did not work well for very large parishes, which were particularly common in northern England. Such parishes were typically subdivided into multiple townships , which levied their rates separately. The Poor Relief Act 1662 therefore directed that for poor law purposes 'parish' meant any place which maintained its own poor, thereby converting many townships into separate 'poor law parishes'. As
13266-499: The perceived inefficiency and corruption inherent in the system became a source for concern in some places. For this reason, during the early 19th century the parish progressively lost its powers to ad hoc boards and other organisations, such as the boards of guardians given responsibility for poor relief through the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 . Sanitary districts covered England in 1875 and Ireland three years later. The replacement boards were each entitled to levy their own rate in
13400-411: The population of the parish. Most rural parish councillors are elected to represent the entire parish, though in parishes with larger populations or those that cover larger areas, the parish can be divided into wards. Each of these wards then returns councillors to the parish council (the numbers depending on their population). Only if there are more candidates standing for election than there are seats on
13534-467: The property to Anthony Blagrave of Sonning , from whom the Wilder family purchased it in 1632. The last mention of the chapel as a working place of worship is a reference dated 1675 in the family's deeds . The old chapel edifice was reportedly demolished in 1808, with evidence of its foundations being discovered in the building of the present church. In 1799 Rev Thomas Sheppard built a new chapel of ease , at
13668-408: The railway in 1852, which maintained it in operation until 1951. Then, a collapsed aqueduct closed it as a through route, although it was never formally abandoned. The railway line was extended to Devizes in 1864, and became part of a new direct GWR main line to Devon and Cornwall in 1906. Theale would have been one of the towns and villages dependent on the coaching trade, for which the arrival of
13802-487: The railway. The growth of the village led to the creation of a separate ecclesiastical parish and the consecration of a new church in 1832. The road came back to life with the invention of the motor car, and the new status of the Bath Road as London's highway to Bristol was demonstrated on 23 April 1900, when the Automobile Club held a motor car reliability demonstration involving a cavalcade from London to Calcot Park ,
13936-416: The rural district became part of Newbury District Council which, in turn became the unitary authority of West Berkshire. The landscape of the present parish is relatively flat, with expanses of level ground flanking the main road. It is dominated by the built-up area of the village. This is residential north of the bypass, and commercial south of it. To the north of the village there is a golf course, and to
14070-480: The same park in 2018. Theale has a railway station on the Reading to Taunton line ; the station has been in operation since 1847. Until 2013, the layout consisted of two platforms, the eastbound to Reading via Southcote Junction and Reading West and the westbound to Newbury via Aldermaston , Midgham , Thatcham , and Newbury Racecourse . Some trains run past Newbury to Kintbury , Hungerford and Bedwyn . Until 1963, local services ran to Trowbridge via
14204-475: The so-called Devizes branch line which was closed in that year. The station had a siding for general goods (freight) services on the north side to the east of its yard, and a pub called the "Railway Arms" at the yard entrance. Aggregate traffic (sand and gravel) used a terminal to the west, and this remains open. The pub was demolished to build Brunel Way for the Theale Business Park . In 2013,
14338-485: The south. Two further such lakes are in a business park in the extreme south-east corner of the parish. As with other parts of the Kennet Valley, soil in Theale is a variety of chalk, flint, gravel, clay, alluvium and loam. The village is on a broad gravel terrace, the gravel deriving from flints weathered out of the bedrock of chalk. The chalk outcrops in the hills to the north, with pockets of clay. The river flood plain
14472-483: The summer of 2020. Theale Green Community School is a comprehensive secondary school and arts college located to the west of the village and has a specialist department catering for students on the autism spectrum . The school's catchment area covers Woolhampton, Bradfield, Beenham, Englefield and Basildon . There is documentary evidence from 1291 of a chapel dedicated to St John the Baptist at Theale, belonging to
14606-568: The very first of the nuns was Alicia Garinges, who was probably previously a nun of Goring. The seal of Goring Priory depicted the Virgin Mary in the pose of the Seat of Wisdom ( Sedes sapientiae ), which was a common motif for seals of nunneries in medieval England, though not the majority choice. The motif entails a depiction of the Blessed Virgin seated and facing forward, presenting or holding
14740-703: The village The ale. The old significance of the position of Theale is that it lay at the junction of two ancient natural routes, one following the Kennet Valley from east to west and another which exploited the valley of the River Pang to run at a low level through the Chiltern Hills from north to south via the Goring Gap . This latter route was taken by a Roman road which ran from Calleva Atrebatum (modern Silchester ) north to Dorchester on Thames . Extrapolation of
14874-516: The village before the Second World War came from H & G Simonds Brewery of Reading which owned the Falcon and the Bridge House Inn by the canal, and from Strange's Brewery at Aldermaston Wharf , which owned the Crown and the White Hart. The street name, Blatch's Close, commemorates the firm. Theale was once involved in Tilehurst's tile industry ; until at least the late 19th century there
15008-587: The village then had the Railway Arms next to the station, since demolished; the Bridge House Inn, next to the canal, now closed and, on Church Street, the Red Lion, closed 2014; the Lamb, closed 2012 and the Volunteer. The village business with the highest public profile in the later 19th and earlier 20th century was Blatch's Theale Brewery, located in premises off the High Street. The brewery began operations in 1752, and
15142-419: The village to run via Pangbourne . Theale is just south-west of junction 12 of the M4 motorway ; where the junction signs direct motorists to "Theale, Reading West". The motorway here was opened in 1971, simultaneously with a village bypass that runs south of the village. Part of the old road was suppressed for the motorway. After 1971, the name " Bath Road " was given to the bypass. The first roundabout from
15276-424: The village was a chapelry , comprising a western outlier of this large and irregularly shaped parish. The odd parish boundaries by the river indicates that the valley bottom had been converted from swamp forest to flood-meadows or reed-beds for thatching by the start of the second millennium. The portion belonging to Englefield lay between the main river (now the canal) and a branch, called Holy Brook , which left
15410-416: The village, Theale Old Gravel Pit, opened in 1887 with its own railway siding. The 1898 Ordnance Survey map also shows a small gasworks next to the station, and a ropewalk off Station Road near its junction with the High Street. There is evidence that local farmers were growing hemp to make into rope. The railway to Devizes was closed in 1963, and Theale lost its local service to that town. RAF Theale
15544-479: The village, Woodfield Way in the north-east and Meadow Way in the south-west. The narrow strip of land between the High Street and the bypass was infilled with blocks of flats. As a precautionary preservation measure, in 1971, the Rural District Council declared three conservation areas : Theale High Street/Blossom Lane, Holy Trinity, Theale and The Lamb, Theale. In 1984, after it was realised that several of
15678-551: The walls are in red brick. The roof has five pitches meeting at a tall, thin spire in white. There are now no Nonconformist congregations in the village. The Congregational church founded a congregation in Theale in about 1875. This took over the Angel Inn in the High Street in 1913, demolished the allegedly 16th-century building and built a chapel . This closed in 1996, and was itself replaced by apartments called Angel Court in 2007. The Primitive Methodist Church founded
15812-644: The way they operate. Civil parishes in Scotland were abolished for local government purposes by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1929 ; the Scottish equivalent of English civil parishes are the community council areas established by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 , which have fewer powers than their English and Welsh counterparts. There are no equivalent units in Northern Ireland . The parish system in Europe
15946-626: The west are a few large fields owned by the Englefield Estate . There were many wooded areas within the old parish before 2000, but these have been annexed by neighbouring parishes and the only named wood left is a tiny fragment in the south-east corner of the golf course next to the M4 called Further Clayhill Copse. The River Kennet runs south of the village, and is joined by the Kennet & Avon Canal with two sets of locks and weirs ( Garston and Sheffield Locks). It used to cut through meadows occupying
16080-613: The west by the A340 road . The name is thought to come from the Old English þelu meaning planks. As with the village of Theale in Somerset , this probably refers to planks used to create causeways on marshes or flood plains . A local legend suggests the name Theale refers to the village's coaching inns, and its position as the first staging post on the Bath Road out of Reading – literally calling
16214-418: Was a kiln to the north-east of the village. Pincents Kiln exploited the proximity of chalk to a pocket of clay to make lime cement as well as bricks and tiles. The site is now a business park to the east of the M4. Some of the buildings in the High Street have old tiled roofs. Gravel extraction was confined to small pits on the exposed gravel terrace of the village until the arrival of the railway. A large pit
16348-519: Was a medieval monastery of Augustinian Canonesses regular in Oxfordshire , England , established before 1181. When Burnham Abbey was established in 1265/6 by Richard, Earl of Cornwall , an entire community of nuns was sent from Goring. Moreover, Lacock Abbey was founded in Wiltshire in the early 13th century by Ela, Countess of Salisbury and the initial group of nuns took the veil in 1232,
16482-678: Was acquired by the Blatch Brothers, William, Henry and Frank, in 1854. The family went on to create an estate of twenty-two public houses in west Berkshire and north Hampshire , including the Bull, which was the tap house. The firm sold its beer under the trademark of a stylised ear of barley. There was also a bottling plant, and bottled beers were Pale Ale, Brown Ale, "B.B.", XXXX – a barley wine and Genuine Stout. The company gave up brewing in 1959 but bought in beer from Wadworth Brewery in Devizes to sell under its own label. This continued until
16616-424: Was an early example of ribbon development , in that the built-up area was a long strip along the Bath Road with no side streets. The layout focuses on the crossroads formed by the High Street (east), Church Street (west), Blossom Lane (north) and Station Road (south). The High Street is completely built up with mainly Victorian edifices in red brick, some in patterned brickwork and some rendered in lime plaster . It
16750-527: Was completed in 1832 in the Early English style , influenced by Salisbury Cathedral . The church is a Grade I listed building . The Roman Catholic church of St Luke is a modern building on Englefield Road. This is the only other place of worship in the village. It is a subsidiary church of the Catholic parish of Woolhampton , and is run by Douai Abbey . The plan is based on an elongated pentagon , and
16884-491: Was established between the 8th and 12th centuries, and an early form was long established in England by the time of the Norman Conquest . These areas were originally based on the territory of manors , which, in some cases, derived their bounds from Roman or Iron Age estates; some large manors were sub-divided into several parishes. Initially, churches and their priests were the gift and continued patronage (benefaction) of
17018-549: Was established, on the former coach horse paddock of the Crown opposite, by the First World War . Five business parks adjoin the railway station. Those north of the railway are, west to east: Theale Technology Centre, Theale Business Park and Arlington Business Park . South of the railway are The Markham Centre (west) and Kennet Weir Business Park (east). Koch Media has its United Kingdom offices in Theale, at Arlington Business Park. Nokia UK opened its south east office in
17152-504: Was found near Deadman's Lane. A housing estate in the south-west quadrant of the village has the street names Cavalier Close and Roundhead Road in memory of this skirmish. Stagecoaches began to run through from London to Bath and Bristol in the mid-17th century, soon after the civil war ended. In 1667, the first through coach was advertised as The Flying Machine in an advertising poster: All those desirous to pass from London to Bath, or any other place on their Road, let them repair to
17286-583: Was locally re-opened from the Thames at Reading to Hungerford wharf in July 1974. However, full restoration of the entire length to Bath was only completed in 2004. In 1983, West Berkshire Council declared the Sheffield Bridge Conservation Area to protect the swing bridge, Sheffield Lock and Sheffield Mill. In 2000, the canal towpath became part of National Cycle Route 4 . It has the legal status of
17420-401: Was made into a turnpike by Act of Parliament in 1714. The rest of the road from London to Bristol was to follow in the next four decades, leading to a golden age of coach travel. As the Bath Road thus became an established trade route and turnpike between the south-west and south-east of England, Theale became a staging post and as such was known for its numerous coaching inns . A stage
17554-540: Was opened in 1887 in the west of the village, with a railway spur. This pit was deep enough to flood as a lake, but subsequent work proceeding westwards down the Bath Road involved shallow stripping of the gravel above the water table . The Theale and Great Western Sand and Gravel Co was incorporated as a limited company in 1928, and was taken over by the Wraysbury Sand and Gravel Co in 1955. The rail-served Theale Aggregate Depot on Wigmore Lane remains in operation, although
17688-410: Was provided. A new dual carriageway bypass was built from the junction, running south of the village to the A340. A short link road, Hoad Way, was provided from this to the east end of the High Street. The new transport link led to major development in the village. The area between the bypass and railway was zoned for industrial and warehouse development. Two substantial new housing estates were added to
17822-503: Was that the village was not in the hundred, because Tilehurst parish was in the Hundred of Reading. The manor and church of Tilehurst belonged to Reading Abbey in the Middle Ages. However, the chapel at Theale did not but was part of land-holdings in Theale held by the nunnery of Goring Priory by 1291. The nuns also held the neighbouring manor of Sulham, but the chapel had some connection with
17956-413: Was the distance a coach would run before changing horses, and the staging post was where the horses were rested and refreshed before doing the stage again in the opposite direction. A stage was usually seven to fifteen miles long, depending on topography, so Reading to Theale, at five miles, was a short stage and would have taken an hour. The 18th century highwayman , Dick Turpin , is said to have hidden in
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