Streatley
Historically in Berkshire, Streatley lies across the Thames from Goring under the wooded slopes of the Wessex Downs where the ancient Ridgeway drops to ford the river. En route from Silchester to Dorchester, the Romans built a causeway and a bridge, and the Domesday Book records a settlement in 1086. On the Downs above the village, the last great battle between the invading Danes and Alfred the Great took place nearly two centuries before the Normans arrived. Until last century, the road from Reading to Oxford passed through the village, and the Bull catered for the coaches.
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Streatley Church and the Morrell Room Streatley Church was founded in the 12th century and restored in the 19th. Henry VIII gave Thurle Grange (then a farm) to one of his servants in the 1500's and the Dovecote behind Place Manor also dates from that era. |
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The Swan Hotel at Streatley |
Despite its proximity to Goring, Streatley used to have not only its own church but also its mill. Sadly, this burned down in 1927 and was not rebuilt. River navigation improved when the flash lock at Goring was replaced by a pound lock in 1787, and the first bridge in recent times followed fifty years later. Now two National Trails use the modern bridge to cross the Thames here. |
Two-thirds of the parish area is farmland, and half the remainder is wooded. Much of the balance is chalk grassland in the care of the National Trust and Golf Club, now an effective barrier to unwanted upland development. The modern settlement lies close to the river, overlooking the water meadows and extending up the dry side valleys (coombes) between the woods.
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The most conspicuous building in Streatley
High Street is Streatley House (1765). At one time the home of Mrs Morrell,
the authoritarian benefactress who owned much of the village until her
death in 1938, the house was occupied in the 1940's by the Royal Veterinary
College. In those days, Streatley was served by builders, garages and
shops, of which the best-known was formerly owned by the Wells sisters
and kept its name when Patrick Rance ran his cheese business from the
shop, attracting custom from fifty miles away. All of these closed within
a short period around the year 2000, leaving the Bull Inn and the Swan
Hotel as the main commercial activities in the village.
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Streatley High Street |
But the station and shops in Goring are easily reached and, with its thriving Primary School and lively village hall (the Morrell Room), Streatley attracts young families and retired people alike.
For a hundred years, writers and poets from Jerome K Jerome to Richard Adams have celebrated the landscape of the Goring Gap, bidding "Sweet Thames, Run Softly ...".
