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Playhatch

Hamlets in OxfordshireSonningUse British English from August 2015
PlayHatch geograph.org.uk 65915
PlayHatch geograph.org.uk 65915

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.

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

Playhatch
Henley Road, South Oxfordshire Eye and Dunsden

Geographical coordinates (GPS) Address Nearby Places
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Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 51.4828 ° E -0.9331 °
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Address

Henley Road

Henley Road
RG4 9RB South Oxfordshire, Eye and Dunsden
England, United Kingdom
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PlayHatch geograph.org.uk 65915
PlayHatch geograph.org.uk 65915
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Nearby Places

Eye and Dunsden
Eye and Dunsden

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.

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.