Sonning Hill

Ali's Pond is a 0.4-hectare (0.99-acre) Local Nature Reserve in Sonning in Berkshire. It is owned by Sonning Parish Council and managed by the Friends of Ali's Pond.The nature reserve adjoins King George's Field in Sonning. It was established in 1997 by professional ecologist and local resident Alastair Driver (hence the site's name), who acts as the voluntary warden. The area is laid out with paths and large ponds.Following the discovery of breeding Great Crested Newts during the Millennium Festival pond-dipping sessions in the summer of 2000, an application was made to English Nature for local nature reserve status for the site. The first site management plan was produced in September 2000 and the site was officially declared Ali's Pond LNR in April 2001, making Sonning Parish Council only the third parish council in the country to declare an LNR. The nature area has been created and managed for the use and enjoyment of all sections of the local community, as well as for visitors to the village. Key England Biodiversity Strategy priority species which have colonized the site so far include Great-crested Newt, Stag Beetle, Song Thrush and Pipistrelle Bat. In total, 19 species of dragonfly, 23 species of butterfly, over 300 species of larger moth and 45 species of aquatic/wetland plants have been recorded at the site since its establishment in 1997. The field immediately to the south and west of Ali's Pond LNR was purchased by Reading Blue Coat School in 2006. Then, in 2007, as a condition of the planning application to change the land use designation of that field from agriculture to sport, another nature area was created within it to provide additional habitat for Great Crested Newts. This area is known as Sonning Field and contains another amphibian breeding pond, log and brushwood piles and new hedgerows with a wide variety of native trees and shrubs. Both fields are rich in wildflowers having had their nutrient levels reduced for many years through annual hay cutting and removal of arisings, supplemented with the sowing of native loamy and sandy soil wildflower mixes in 2020. A permissive path enables easy access through from Ali's Pond and across Sonning Field through to Sonning Lane. In addition to the wholly informal use of the site, a Friends of Ali's Pond (FAP) Group has been set up which now has over 70 members, most of whom live within a couple of miles of the site. Members of this group participate in volunteer management activities such as tree planting, pond clearance and hay-making and attend moth and amphibian surveys under the guidance of the voluntary warden Alastair Driver. These activities have not been confined solely to the reserve — conservation work has also been carried out in other nearby locations to provide complementary habitat and amenity to that found in the reserve. The Friends of Ali's Pond received the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management 2016 Best Practice Award for Practical Nature Conservation - Small Scale.

Sonning is a village and 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".

Deanery Garden (or The Deanery) is an Arts and Crafts style house and garden in Sonning, Berkshire, England. The house was designed and built by architect Edwin Lutyens between 1899 and 1901. It is a Grade I listed building. The gardens—laid out by Lutyens and planted by garden designer Gertrude Jekyll—are Grade II* listed in the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.

The Bull Inn, also known as The Bull at Sonning or just The Bull, is an historic public house — now also a restaurant and hotel — in the centre of the village of Sonning in Berkshire, England.

Sonning Lane is a cricket and hockey ground in Sonning near Reading, Berkshire, England. It is located on a road called Sonning Lane between the A4 road and the village of Sonning, hence the name. Sonny Lane is the home of Reading Cricket Club. In 1988 Berkshire played Cornwall in the grounds' first Minor Counties Championship match, and the county side has continued to play there regularly since. This has also brought List-A cricket to the ground, starting with Berkshire's participation in the 1991 NatWest Trophy. There have been no further List-A games since 2005. The ground is also the home of Reading Hockey Club who enter teams in both the Men's and Women's England Hockey Leagues. The ground has also hosted several men's and women's international matches.

St Andrew's Church is Church of England parish church in a central position in the village of Sonning, close to the River Thames, in the English county of Berkshire. It is notable for its fine array of church monuments and for being the successor of an Anglo-Saxon Cathedral.

The Sonning Cutting railway accident occurred during the early hours of 24 December 1841 in the Sonning Cutting through Sonning Hill, near Reading, Berkshire. A Great Western Railway (GWR) luggage train travelling from London Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads station entered Sonning Cutting. The train was made up of the broad-gauge locomotive Hecla, a tender, three third-class passenger carriages, and some heavily laden goods waggons. The passenger carriages were between the tender and the goods waggons. Recent heavy rain had saturated the soil in the cutting causing it to slip, covering the line on which the train was travelling. On running into the slipped soil the engine was derailed, causing it to slow rapidly. The passenger coaches were crushed between the goods waggons and the tender. Eight passengers died at the scene and seventeen were injured seriously, one of whom died later in hospital. Details of the accident and subsequent proceedings were reported widely by the newspapers of the day.

Sonning Bishop's Palace was a former episcopal palace at Sonning, east of Reading, in Berkshire, England.The palace was in Holme Park near the River Thames. It was a residence of the Bishops of Salisbury. In 1135, while staying at the palace, Bishop Roger of Salisbury attended the funeral of King Henry I at Reading Abbey. In September 1216, King John stayed for six days at the palace. In 1337, defences were added by Bishop Robert Wyville of Salisbury. After the abdication of King Richard II and his cousin King Henry IV's coronation in October 1399, Richard II's then 9-year-old wife, Isabella, was kept under house arrest at the palace. The Bishops of Salisbury continued in residence, some more often than others, until they sold it to Queen Elizabeth I. She visited the palace twice, but later it fell into disrepair. The site of the palace was excavated in 1912–14 and evidence of a hall, chapel and other rooms was found. The remains dated from the 13th century with alterations in the 14th and 15th centuries. The buildings were surrounded by a moat on three sides. Today nothing can be seen of the palace from the surface apart from some unevenness in the ground. It is in a grass field used for cows between St Andrew's Church and Sonning Lock.

The Great House at Sonning (formerly the White Hart public house) is a hotel and restaurant with a riverside garden on the River Thames near Sonning Bridge at Sonning, Berkshire, England. It is possible for patrons to moor along the towpath running past the hotel on the river. It was formerly a public house, known as the White Hart because King Richard II's wife, Isabella of Valois was kept prisoner at the Bishop's Palace in the village after his death and his badge was a White Hart. In 1989, the original White Hart was combined with The Red House, previously a private home on Lee's Hill where the dramatist Sir Terence Rattigan resided during 1945–47, to become The Great House.About 150 metres East on the opposite side of the B478 road are Deanery Garden and St Andrew's Church. Close by, just over Sonning Bridge, is The Mill at Sonning, now a dinner theatre. On the opposite Oxfordshire bank of the Thames is another riverside hotel and restaurant, the French Horn. Patrons have included Amal and George Clooney. The Clooneys bought the nearby Mill House in Sonning Eye in 2014.

Sonning Bridge is a road bridge across the River Thames at Sonning, Berkshire. It links Sonning with Sonning Eye (Oxfordshire) and crosses the Thames on the reach above Shiplake Lock, just short of Sonning Lock. It is a brick arch bridge completed in 1775, to replace an earlier wooden bridge. The bridge has been the subject of many paintings and prints by artists and is a Grade II listed building.The road extends to the two Sonning Backwater Bridges. One is over the backwater downstream of the weir and the other is over the millrace which is between the two main branches. The Thames Path crosses the river at this point.

Reading Blue Coat School is a co-educational public day school in Holme Park, Sonning, Berkshire. It is situated beside the River Thames, and was established in 1646 by Richard Aldworth, who named it "Aldworth's Hospital". Aldworth founded a near-identical school in Basingstoke in the same year.

Sonning Cutting is on the original Great Western Railway built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. It is to the east of Reading station and to the west of Twyford station near the village of Sonning in Berkshire, England. The railway's originally planned route had been around the north of Sonning Hill past the village. But because of local objections the railway bypassed the village in a cutting, over 1-mile (1.6 km) and up to 60 feet (18 m) deep, through the hill, giving a more direct route between Twyford and Reading.The cutting was hand-dug with no machinery and the spoil removed in wheelbarrows and horse-drawn carts. It took two years to complete and several people were killed in the process. The line was opened on 30 March 1840. After the ending of the broad gauge in 1892 the railway was widened to four tracks. This involved a major rebuilding of the cutting, during which the slope of the sides was reduced.