Binfield Heath
| Binfield Heath | |
| Oxfordshire | |
|---|---|
 The Bottle and Glass Inn, Binfield Heath | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SU743780 |
| Location: | 51°29’48"N, -0°55’51"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 709 (2011) |
| Post town: | Henley-on-Thames |
| Postcode: | RG9 |
| Dialling code: | 0118 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | South Oxfordshire |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Henley |
| Website: | binfieldheath.org.uk |
Binfield Heath is a small village, or perhaps a hamlet, in south-eastern Oxfordshire, two and a half miles south of Henley-on-Thames and three and a half miles north-east of Reading, standing on a southern knoll of the Chiltern Hills.
The 2011 Census recorded the parish population as 709.
The village has a Congregational Church. Te local pub is the Bottle and Glass. Also around the village are a polo ground, and a restaurant.
Binfield Heath has an almost continuous street of Victorian houses, Shiplake Row, which leads half a mile and descends 30 yards to the larger village of Shiplake beside the River Thames, which forms the border of Berkshire. Crowsley Park Wood is the parish's largest woodland and is the opposite side of the village from the combined 'Comp Wood, The Common and Oakhouse Wood' and the field-surrounded Kings Common woodland.
History and creation as a village
Remains of what is believed to be a Roman temple have been discovered on the north side of the village at High Wood.[1][2]
Binfield Heath takes its name from the Hundred of Binfield: the name 'Binfield' itself derives from Benifeld, noted in 1176 with later variant spellings, and may come from an original Beonan feld, ‘Beona's field'. Because of the poor quality of land in this area it was left as heath, roughly in the centre of what is now the village. The heath was originally common land, lying between what is now Dunsden Way, Gravel Road, Emmer Green Road and Common Lane. The heath had four gates leading onto it, one each at the Bottle & Glass, the New Inn, The Coach and Horses and Coppid Cross Roads. Local inhabitants had the right to pasture their animals on it. Shiplake Row, leading down from Binfield Heath towards Shiplake Cross, was among the earliest roads to be populated.[3]
The heart of the village is green-buffered but not isolated, as it is a relatively small knoll in the foothills of the Chilterns. Dunsden church is half a mile to the south-west and both communities are combined with the ecclesiastical parish today of Shiplake.
A house on Arch Hill was used as headquarters for an illegal global drug operation until it was raided in 1977 under Operation Julie, as recounted by Leaf Fielding in the book To live outside the law.[4]
Events
The village has revived the tradition of the annual 'wheelbarrow race', which used to run in the seventies and eighties between the Bottle and Glass Inn on Bones Lane and the White Hart at Shiplake Row (now Orwells restaurant), a distance of 1.2 miles. Pairs competed in fancy dress, with one entrant riding and the other pushing. Both would down a pint of beer at the start before charging down Common Lane towards Arch Hill and the village stores; when they reached the halfway point at the New Inn (since closed), they would down another beer before swapping roles and making for the finish at the White Hart where a final pint awaited them. The event was held on public roads and discontinued in 1991.[5] After a hiatus of nearly 30 years, the event took place on the village recreation ground on 9 June 2019.[6] The village has for the past 70 years held a Dog and Flower show which takes place on the field opposite Holmwood House
About the village
The [[Crowsley Park|Crowsley Park estate, including a Grade II listed, 18th century mansion house, a grotto, barns and a stable, is west of the village centre which has the vast majority of buildings in the village. In the heart of the village and to the west and south are 11 other homes, also listed: Jasmine Cottage, Freize Farmhouse, The Well House, Fir Tree Cottage, Thatched Cottage, Shiplake Rise Cottage, The Bottle and Glass, The Old House, Coppice Cottage, Elm Tree Farmhouse, Hampstead Farm Stable, and seven barns.
Keeps Well, a covered well by Holmwood house was accidentally demolished by a tractor driver in the 1990s, but has subsequently been rebuilt.
Holmwood, an 18th-century country house, is located on Shiplake Row in Binfield Heath, set over almost twenty-seven acres of grounds. It was owned by Admiral Charles Swinburne in the 19th-century and was the family home of Swinburne's son, the poet Algernon Swinburne.[7] It was later owned by the barrister and peer Jonathan Marks, Baron Marks of Henley-on-Thames from 2008 to 2018 and restored by him.[7] Holmwood was bought by Rupert Murdoch and Jerry Hall for £11 million in 2019:[8] Hall kept it in the divorce settlement soon after.
Congregational church
The Congregational Church was built in a Gothic Revival style in 1835, an early embellished example of a nonconformist church.[9]
Outside links
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Binfield Heath) |
References
- ↑ "Could Roman temple be buried in woods?". Henley Standard. 16 May 2016. https://www.henleystandard.co.uk/news/community/98834/could-roman-temple-be-buried-in-woods.html.
- ↑ "Fieldwork Projects". South Oxfordshire Archaeological Group. 2019. https://www.soagarch.org.uk/projects.html.
- ↑ "Binfield Heath Parish Plan". Binfield Heath Parish Council. November 2013. http://www.binfieldheath.org.uk/pdf/BINFIELDHEATHPARISHPLANNov13.pdf.
- ↑ "Reading student's life as global LSD dealer". Reading Post (Trinity Mirror). 7 June 2013. https://www.getreading.co.uk/whats-on/find-things-to-do/reading-students-life-global-lsd-4211433.
- ↑ "Race remembered". Henley Standard. 17 June 2019. https://www.henleystandard.co.uk/news/diary/140559/race-remembered.html.
- ↑ "Wild wheelbarrow race returns after 30 years". Henley Standard. 3 June 2019. https://www.henleystandard.co.uk/news/diary/140136/wild-wheelbarrow-race-returns-after-30-years.html.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Lewis, Carol (9 November 2018). "A Georgian pile all in good taste". The Times (72688): p. 94. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/LPOPZX913689590/TTDA?u=wes_ttda&sid=bookmark-TTDA&xid=9c66c079. Retrieved 1 June 2023.
- ↑ "Magnificent home fit for model and media mogul". Henley Standard. 9 December 2019. https://www.henleystandard.co.uk/news/binfield-heath/147311/magnificent-home-fit-for-model-and-media-mogul.html.
- ↑ Nikolaus Pevsner: The Buildings of England: Oxfordshire, 1974 Penguin Books ISBN 978-0-300-09639-2page 590