Sonning Works

Eye and Dunsden is a largely rural civil parish in the most southern part of the English county of Oxfordshire. It includes the villages of Sonning Eye, Dunsden Green and Playhatch and borders on the River Thames with the village of Sonning in Berkshire connected via multi-span medieval Sonning Bridge (a series of bridges across channels, in sections replaced due to erosion and narrowness). Before 1866, Eye & Dunsden was part of the trans-county parish of Sonning.Up to 2003, the parish also included the western half of the village of Binfield Heath which was then joined with the rest of that village, previously in Shiplake, to create a new parish. To the west, it abuts Berkshire's county town Reading. To the east is also the parish of Shiplake, the near part of which on the road to Henley-on-Thames is known as Shiplake Row. Sonning Common and the relatively early 2000s-created civil parish of Binfield Heath around that village rise to the north. In 2011 its population was 366, bar farmhouses, riverboats and caravans all grouped in the above three settlements. Caversham Lakes, including the Thames and Kennet Marina, Redgrave Pinsent Rowing Lake, Reading Sailing Club, Isis Water Ski Club, and Sonning Works, are all on the Thames flood plain within the parish. Berry Brook starts close to the Redgrave-Pinsent Rowing Lake to the southwest, running northeast through the River Thames floodplain past Playhatch, under the B478 Playhatch Road near the Sonning Works, before joining the river at Hallsmead Ait. Eye & Dunsden features some ancient wooded parts of the Chiltern Hills and rolling farmland.

Playhatch (or Play Hatch) is a hamlet in the civil parish of Eye & Dunsden in South Oxfordshire, England, about 2 miles (3.2 km) northeast of Reading, Berkshire.

The Berry Brook is a stream close to Sonning Eye in the flood plain of the River Thames, in southern Oxfordshire, England.The stream flows northeast from close to the Redgrave-Pinsent Rowing Lake, parallel with the A4155 Henley Road out of Caversham, Reading towards Henley-on-Thames. It flows under the B478 Playhatch Road close to Playhatch and the Sonning Works owned by Lafarge. The stream passes under Spring Lane by the Flowing Spring public house, also near Playhatch. It then flows through farmland owned by Phillimore estate, entering the River Thames at Hallsmead Ait just south of Shiplake. Berry Brook Boats is located at the Thames and Kennet Marina, close to the source of Berry Brook.

Sonning Regatta is the regatta of the village of Sonning in Berkshire and the hamlet of Sonning Eye in Oxfordshire, England, on the north and south banks of the River Thames. It is a part of the Sonning Festival.

Sonning Lock is a lock and associated weir situated on the River Thames at the village of Sonning near Reading, Berkshire, England. The first lock was built by the Thames Navigation Commission in 1773 and it has been rebuilt three times since then. There is a weir a little upstream at the top of the island where Sonning Backwater separates from the main course of the river.

The French Horn at Sonning is a hotel and restaurant on the banks of the River Thames next to the Sonning Backwater Bridges, at Sonning Eye, Oxfordshire, England. The hotel includes a number of riverside cottages that are now used as rooms for hotel clients. There is an old, rusty iron gate with the name of the hotel within the ironwork on the path by the river opposite Sonning Bridge. Notable clientele included the film director and restaurant critic Michael Winner (died 2013), who has used the location as a film set. It has also featured in the books of Dick Francis.Close by is The Mill at Sonning, now a dinner theatre. On the opposite Berkshire bank over the main Sonning Bridge is another riverside hotel and restaurant, the Great House at Sonning.

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.

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.

Sonning Eye is a hamlet on the River Thames in the Sonning Common ward of South Oxfordshire, England, in the civil parish of Eye & Dunsden (one of its four small settlements), at what is since 1974 the southernmost tip of Oxfordshire.

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 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.

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.