Sonning

Coordinates: 51°28′23″N 0°54′40″W / 51.473°N 0.911°W / 51.473; -0.911
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For the prize, see Sonning Prize.

Sonning
Shire county
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townREADING
Postcode districtRG4
Dialling code0118
PoliceThames Valley
FireRoyal Berkshire
AmbulanceSouth Central
UK Parliament
List of places
UK
England
Berkshire
51°28′23″N 0°54′40″W / 51.473°N 0.911°W / 51.473; -0.911

Sonning (traditional:

civil parish in Berkshire, England, on the River Thames, east of Reading. The village was described by Jerome K. Jerome in his book Three Men in a Boat as "the most fairy-like little nook on the whole river".[3]

Toponymy

The place-name Sonning seems to contain an Old English personal name, Sunna, + ingas (Old English), 'The village of the people of . . .' ; 'the village of the people called after . . .', so probably, 'homestead/village of Sunna's people',[4] the Sunningas. Sonning appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Soninges.[5]

Geography

The

St Patrick
's Bridge. The northern corner of the parish consists of very low-lying land adjoining the river.

The Sonning

Conservation Area.[6]

History

In

Anglo-Saxon church into minsters with their own parochially known as the minster system
.

Sonning prospered as an important stopping post for travellers, both by road and by boat. There were a number of ancient

Lords of the Manor
of Sonning, although they did not live there.

The Great Western Railway passes about 0.5 miles (1 km) south of the village, in a 2-mile (3.2 km) long cutting, Sonning Cutting. It was opened in 1840, and was the scene of one of the first railway disasters in 1841, when a mixed passenger and goods train ran into a landslip. Nine passengers died in the accident, being thrown from the open trucks just behind the engine. Many were stonemasons working on the Houses of Parliament, and the disaster led to changes in the Railways Act, which required that third-class passengers be carried in stoutly constructed carriages rather than open trucks. The Act also created Parliamentary trains for third-class passengers.

Just outside the village, above

country house was built in the village, the Deanery Garden. It provides a fine example of an Edwin Lutyens house with a Gertrude Jekyll garden, originally designed as a show house for the founder of Country Life
magazine.

Transport

The main road through Sonning is the B478, running from the Bridge to the

A4. The B4446 runs north from the A4 to the village. The A4 itself passes through the south of the parish, as does the Great Western Main Line
, though there is no station. On the Thames, there are moorings both above and below Sonning Lock, as well as in the weir stream.

Print of Sonning Bridge (1799) with the tower of St Andrew's Church, Sonning, in the background.

Local government

Sonning is a

Wokingham
. The parish council and the unitary authority are responsible for different aspects of local government.

Twinning

Sonning is

twinned with Ligugé, France.[8]
The village has an active twinning association and the lane to the village primary school is called Ligugé Way.

Media

Sonning Parish Magazine,[9] established in 1869, serves Sonning and the neighbouring village of Charvil.

Sport and leisure

Sonning has a King George's Field in memorial to

tennis courts
.

A4 road. Sonning Regatta restarted in 2000 and is held every two years just upstream from Sonning Lock. There is sailing and waterskiing on the Caversham Lakes across the Thames and the Redgrave Pinsent Rowing Lake
has recently been created there as well.

The Sonning Village Show, started in the 1960s by the local Women's Institute, is held every September at the village primary school.[14]

Notable residents

The playwright Sir Terence Rattigan, who lived at The Red House in Sonning, 1945–47.

Notable former and current village inhabitants include:

The following recipients of the Victoria Cross are buried in the churchyard of St Andrew's Church:

  • Edmund John Phipps-Hornby
  • Llewellyn Alberic Emilius Price-Davies

Bibliography

  • Angel Perkins, The Book of Sonning, Barracuda Books, 1977.
    ISBN 0-86023-051-1
    .

References

  1. ^ "Civil Parish population 2011". Neighbourhood Statistics. Office for National Statistics. Retrieved 1 December 2016.
  2. ISBN 978-0198217190
    .
  3. ^ Jerome, Jerome K (1889). Three Men in a Boat (1964 ed.). London: Folio Society. p. 141.
  4. ^ M. Gelling The Place Names of Berkshire, 3 parts (Cambridge, 1973-6), i. pp.132-4, iii. pp.843-4; A.D.Mills, Dictionary of English Place-Names (Oxford, 2002), p.428; E.Ekwall, Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names (Oxford, 1960), p.431; V.Watts, Cambridge dictionary of English place-names, (Cambridge,2004), p.560
  5. ^ National Archives: E 31/2/1/1677
  6. ^ "Sonning Conservation Area Appraisal 2017" (PDF). UK: Wokingham Borough Council. 2017. Retrieved 6 June 2017.
  7. ^ Pounds, Nigel (2000). A history of the English parish. Cambridge University Press. p. 22.
  8. ^ "British towns twinned with French towns". Archant Community Media Ltd. Retrieved 11 July 2013.
  9. ^ "Sonning Parish Magazine". UK: Sonning Parish. Retrieved 24 January 2017.
  10. ^ "Sonning Cricket Club".
  11. ^ "Sonning Hockey Club".
  12. ^ "Berkshire Shire Hall R.F.C."
  13. ^ "Sonning Golf Club".
  14. ^ "Sonning Village Events - Sonning Show". Sonning Parish Council. Retrieved 10 October 2023.
  15. ^ Sawer, Patrick (10 October 2014). "Welcome to Sonning, Mr & Mrs Clooney". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  16. ^ Sawer, Patrick (9 October 2014). "George Clooney snaps up £10 million manor house in Sonning, Berkshire". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  17. ^ "6 bedroom house for sale – Pearson Road, Sonning, Berkshire, RG4". OnTheMarket.com. Retrieved 24 January 2018.
  18. ^ a b van Went, Peter. "A History of Sonning". Sonning Parish Council. Retrieved 24 January 2018.
  19. ^ "Farindon, Anthony" . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
  20. ^ Ditchfield, P. H.; Page, William, eds. (1923). "Sonning with Earley, Woodley and Sandford". A History of the County of Berkshire: Volume 3. Victoria County History. pp. 210–225. Retrieved 5 September 2011.
  21. ^ "Didi Zill photo book". www.thehighwaystar.com.
  22. ^ "Theresa May's private entourage goes the wrong way around a roundabout". Reading Chronicle. Reading, Berkshire. 27 November 2017. Retrieved 5 July 2018.
  23. ^ "Jimmy Page now lives in Sonning". Berkshire Live. 19 July 2006. Archived from the original on 31 March 2012.
  24. BBC Berkshire
    . Retrieved 5 September 2011.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sonning.
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