Preston Crowmarsh

Howbery Park is a 36-ha park located adjacent to the River Thames in Crowmarsh Gifford near Wallingford, UK. Its main feature is an English manor house built in about 1850 by Member of Parliament (MP) William Seymour Blackstone. Blackstone fell into debt, largely because of the building costs, which resulted in him spending time in the debtors' prison at Oxford and contributed to the end of his political career. He died in Brighton, never having lived at Howbery Park.Other owners of Howbery Park were Henry Bertie Williams-Wynn (who purchased the house in 1867), Harvey du Cros (in 1902) and George Denison Faber, 1st Baron Wittenham. The estate passed into the ownership of the government in the 1930s and was used during the Second World War to house US and Canadian servicemen and then refugees from Central Europe. After the war, it was selected as the location for the new Hydraulics Research Station (HRS), established under the directorship of Sir Claude Inglis. HRS was privatised in 1982 from the Department of the Environment (DoE) and the HR Wallingford Group was created. The new company was limited by guarantee, had no shareholders and was given the remit to invest in hydraulic research. The assets transferred with Howbery Park in 1982 included the grant-funded-state-of-the-art- Fountain Building, and a new mainframe computer. The Manor House and Stable Block are Listed Buildings Grade II (1985). In addition to HR Wallingford who occupy a new building, Kestrel House, several other organisations are now based in Howbery Park, including the Environment Agency. There are several stories of strange occurrences concerning Howbery Park. The most common one is the ghost of the Lady in Grey. Several drivers on Benson Lane, adjacent to Howbery Park, claim to have been forced to swerve to avoid a lady dressed in grey who was walking in the road. A lady in grey was seen to walk in the grounds of the French Gardens, now the site of the South Oxfordshire District Council. Local stories are that this is the ghost of Lady Wittenham, wife of George Denison Faber, 1st Baron Wittenham. In September 2007 key scenes for the feature-film adaptation of Philip Pullman's The Butterfly Tattoo (film) were shot on site.

Benson Lock is a lock on the River Thames in England, close to Benson, Oxfordshire but on the opposite bank of the river. The first pound lock here was built by the Thames Navigation Commission in 1788 and it was replaced by the present masonry lock in 1870. The distance between Benson Lock and Cleeve Lock downstream is 6.5 miles (10.4 km) - the longest distance between locks on the River Thames.The weir runs from the lock island level with the lock across to the Benson side. There is a footbridge over the weir which replaced the ferry which operated here previously. The Thames Path crosses the river here.

Benson is a village and civil parish in South Oxfordshire, England. The 2011 Census gave the parish population as 4,754. It lies about a mile and a half (2.4 km) north of Wallingford at the foot of the Chiltern Hills, where a chalk stream, Ewelme Brook, joins the River Thames next to Benson Lock.

The A4074 is a British A road from the Reading suburb of Caversham to the Heyford Hill roundabout on the Oxford Ring Road.The road starts from a junction with the A4155 close to the northern side of Caversham Bridge (over the River Thames) before climbing through the up-market residential area of Caversham Heights. Crossing the Reading Borough boundary, the road proceeds through the small community of Chazey Heath, where it enters thick woodland for several miles before emerging near the village of Woodcote. From here it crosses the more exposed ground of the Chiltern Hills before bypassing both Wallingford and Crowmarsh Gifford on the Wallingford bypass. It then passes by Benson, passes through Shillingford, bypasses Dorchester and passes through Nuneham Courtenay. The road becomes dual-carriageway as it passes Sandford-on-Thames and remains so to its terminus on the Oxford Ring Road at the Heyford Hill roundabout.The road was designated in the 1980s, when the B479 between Caversham and Crowmarsh Gifford was renumbered. In 1990 the A423 from Crowmarsh to Heyford Hill was renumbered the A4074, and the road became the primary route between Reading and Oxford in place of the A329 along the River Thames. The short stretch of the Oxford Ring Road between Heyford Hill and the Hinksey Hill interchange was not renumbered A4074, and remains an isolated fragment of the A423. The poor safety record of a particular stretch of this road, roughly between Chazey Heath and Woodcote, is highlighted in its local nickname, The 13 Bends of Death. Its accident rate of 53 per 100 million vehicle kilometres is nearly 70% higher than average for roads of its type.A half-hourly bus service, branded as river rapids and operated by Thames Travel, owned by Go-Ahead like its sister company the Oxford Bus Company, runs between Reading and Oxford along the A4074, albeit passing through the centre of Wallingford rather than using the by-pass. Alternate buses are numbered X39 and X40, with the X40 also diverting from the main road to serve Woodcote.

Benson Veteran Cycle Museum is a private museum of veteran cycles in the village of Benson near Wallingford in Oxfordshire, England.The museum has over 500 cycles dating from 1818 to 1930, with associated documentation and records. The museum is open by appointment. There is a Benson Veteran Cycle Club annual rally on the first Sunday of July each year.

Crowmarsh Gifford, commonly known as Crowmarsh, is a village in the civil parish of Crowmarsh, in the South Oxfordshire district, in the county of Oxfordshire, England. It is beside the River Thames opposite the market town of Wallingford, the two linked by Wallingford Bridge. Crowmarsh parish also includes the hamlet of Newnham Murren, which is now merged with the village; the hamlet of Mongewell, and the village of North Stoke 2 miles (3.2 km) to the south.

Wallingford Castle was a major medieval castle situated in Wallingford in the English county of Oxfordshire (historically Berkshire), adjacent to the River Thames. Established in the 11th century as a motte-and-bailey design within an Anglo-Saxon burgh, it grew to become what historian Nicholas Brooks has described as "one of the most powerful royal castles of the 12th and 13th centuries". Held for the Empress Matilda during the civil war years of the Anarchy, it survived multiple sieges and was never taken. Over the next two centuries it became a luxurious castle, used by royalty and their immediate family. After being abandoned as a royal residence by Henry VIII, the castle fell into decline. Refortified during the English Civil War, it was eventually slighted, i.e. deliberately destroyed, after being captured by Parliamentary forces after a long siege. The site was subsequently left relatively undeveloped, and the limited remains of the castle walls and the considerable earthworks are now open to the public.

Wallingford Bridge is a medieval road bridge over the River Thames in England which connects Wallingford and Crowmarsh Gifford, Oxfordshire (Wallingford was historically in Berkshire until 1974 reorganization). It crosses the Thames on the reach between Cleeve Lock and Benson Lock. The bridge is 900 feet (270 m) long and has 19 arches. It is a scheduled monument. Since the construction of the southern Wallingford bypass in 1993, most traffic crossing the Thames at the town uses Winterbrook Bridge.

Royal Air Force Benson or RAF Benson (IATA: BEX, ICAO: EGUB) is a Royal Air Force (RAF) station located at Benson, near Wallingford, in South Oxfordshire, England. It is a front-line station and home to the RAF's fleet of Westland Puma HC2 support helicopters, used primarily for the transportation of troops & equipment. Flying squadrons comprise No. 33 Squadron flying the Puma, No. 22 Squadron which provides operational evaluation and training for all aircraft in Joint Helicopter Command and No. 28 Squadron, which is the combined Puma and Boeing Chinook HC6A training unit. Other units include the Oxford University Air Squadron and No. 6 Air Experience Flight, both flying the Grob Tutor T1 light training aircraft used for student and cadet flying training. The National Police Air Service and the Thames Valley Air Ambulance are also based at the station, both operating Airbus H135 helicopters. RAF Benson opened in 1939 and during the Second World War it was tasked with training aircrews on the Fairey Battle light bomber and Avro Anson training aircraft. It was later home to squadrons flying the Supermarine Spitfire and de Havilland Mosquito which operated in the photographic reconnaissance role. Benson operated under RAF Transport Command throughout the 1950s and 1960s. During the 1970s, various communications and administrative units were present and in the early 1990s the station began its association with the support helicopter force.

St Peter's Church is a redundant Anglican church in Wallingford, Oxfordshire, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II* listed building, and is under the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. The church stands at the east side of the town, overlooking the River Thames.

Crowmarsh was a rural district in Oxfordshire, England from 1894 to 1932. It was created under the Local Government Act 1894 from the part of the Wallingford rural sanitary district in Oxfordshire. The remainder of the sanitary district was in Berkshire and became the Wallingford Rural District. Crowmarsh Rural District continued to be administered from Wallingford, with meetings held in the workhouse in the town.The district was abolished in 1932 under a County Review Order, being split between the existing Henley Rural District and the new Bullingdon Rural District. Since 1974 the entire area has been part of the district of South Oxfordshire, which also includes Wallingford and district.

Newnham Murren is a hamlet in the Thames Valley in South Oxfordshire, about 0.5 miles (800 m) east of the market town of Wallingford. Newnham Murren is in the civil parish of Crowmarsh and is now contiguous with the village of Crowmarsh Gifford.