Location
Streatley is a village and parish eight miles (13 km) from Reading and 16 miles (26 km) from Oxford, on the right bank of the river Thames, directly opposite the Oxfordshire village of Goring–on-Thames; they share many local institutions, and are often treated as one community.
According to Wikipedia the whole of Streatley used to be owned by the Morrell family of brewers from Oxford, whose resistance to change enabled the village to withstand the railway and extra houses that went to Goring.
(There is also a Streatley in Bedfordshire.)
The Thames Path, the Icknield Way and the Ridgeway cross the Thames at Streatley, which lies within the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The village is mostly surrounded by National Trust land: the Holies, Lardon Chase and Lough Down.
Outlying hamlets and other local names
Westridge, Southridge, Stichens Green, Coom Bottom and Hungerford Green.
Farm names
in VCH: Kiddington Farm first mentioned in 1514; Gould’s Farm, near Westridge later called College Farm; Rectory Farm was renamed Thurle Grange; Place Farm at the west end of the main street
in 1851 census: Townsend Farm; Hiddenton Farm; Golds Farm; Field Barn Farm; Woods Farm; Warren Farm; Streatley Farm; Southridge Farm.
Size
3,655 acres (1,479 hectares)
Population
974 in 2001; 581 in 1851
Hundred
Moreton
Poor law union
Bradfield
Registration district
Bradfield
Present-day local authority
West Berkshire
Grid reference
SU 59 80
Adjoining parishes in 1851
Aldworth, Ashampstead, Basildon, Goring and Moulsford
Genealogical resources
See Berks FHS Books for coverage of this parish in the society’s range of CDs.
See also Berkshire Record Office holdings.
Local history published by the Goring & Streatley History Society and held in West Berks Libraries
Another look at Goring and Streatley (1999)
A picture history of Goring and Streatley (1986)
Anglican church and parochial organisation
The living of Streatley is a vicarage in the archdeaconry of Berkshire in the diocese of Oxford. The thirteenth-century church of St Mary was rebuilt, with the exception of its fifteenth-century tower, in 1865. It stands near the river to the north of the village street.
Schools
Streatley children were at one time schooled in Basildon, to which end Richard Tull left money in his will. By 1833 an endowed school existed in the village. Four daily schools were recorded in Streatley by the Parliamentary enquiry of 1833, and earlier in the nineteenth century a school for young ladies used to advertise in the Reading Mercury. Today Streatley has a C of E Primary School <http://streatleyprimaryschool.co.uk>
Pubs
The Bull at Streatley was mentioned in Three Men in a boat by Jerome K Jerome. It was a former post house on the turnpike road to Reading.
The Swan at Streatley was at one time owned by Danny la Rue.
Other local history
Childe Court was an old half-timber farm building adapted as a parish reading room in 1898.
The 1851 census records a malt house in the village.
