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Sonning Backwater Bridges

Bridges across the River ThamesBridges completed in 1986Bridges in OxfordshireSonningUse British English from December 2016
The French Horn from Sonning Backwater Bridge
The French Horn from Sonning Backwater Bridge

Sonning Backwater Bridges are the road bridges across the first two of three branches of the Thames at Sonning Eye, Oxfordshire, England. Built in 1986 to replace older wooden structures, one bridge spans a main weir stream – traditionally named the backwater – and the other spans the splayed under-mill outlets from the millrace of the island known as Sonning Eye. These two bridges are paired with the follow-on, much older, brick arches of Sonning Bridge over the navigation channel which thereby enters Berkshire – specifically Sonning. Together, all these bridges form a near perfectly straight line. All three including their two very short causeways or viaducts between them form the longest structure to cross the river below Wallingford, Oxfordshire and above Windsor Railway Bridge.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Sonning Backwater Bridges (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Sonning Backwater Bridges
Playhatch Road, South Oxfordshire Eye and Dunsden

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N 51.476666666667 ° E -0.91583333333333 °
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The Mill at Sonning

Playhatch Road
RG4 6TY South Oxfordshire, Eye and Dunsden
England, United Kingdom
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millatsonning.com

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The French Horn from Sonning Backwater Bridge
The French Horn from Sonning Backwater Bridge
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The Mill at Sonning
The Mill at Sonning

The Mill at Sonning is a theatre and restaurant (or dinner theater), converted from a circa-1800 flour mill on earlier foundations, on an island in the River Thames at Sonning Eye in the English county of Berkshire.The river divides into three, with the mill race forming the middle branch, spanned by one of the Sonning Backwater Bridges just downstream of the mill. The original mill was established much earlier and was mentioned in the Domesday Book. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, the mill was owned by the well-known local families of May and Witherington, and it produced flour for Huntley and Palmer biscuits in the nearby town of Reading. More recently, the Mill complex has been converted into a 215-seat air-conditioned theatre, with a restaurant for pre-theatre meals and also a bar, where the original watermill is now exposed to view. Close by is the French Horn hotel, also on the river. The theatre has a small hydroelectric generator of 18.5 kW capacity, commissioned in June 2005. This was the first such installation on the Thames, predating the one at Windsor Castle. In 1984, the Mill at Sonning was given a conservation award by The Times newspaper and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors for the design, restoration and conversion of the derelict mill into a dinner theatre.The theatre's first artistic director was Peter Egan. Productions have included performances by Anthony Valentine, Judi Dench, June Whitfield, Adam Faith, Michael Denison, Dulcie Gray, John Junkin and Brian Cant. The Mill adjoins the Mill House, a circa-1800 house based on earlier foundations, acquired by the American film actor George Clooney and his wife, British human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, in 2014.