Ashampstead is a small village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

in the rural area between

Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of Letter (alphabet), letters, symbols, etc., especially by Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process invo ...

, Newbury and Streatley in

Berkshire Berkshire ( ; in the 17th century sometimes spelt phonetically as Barkeshire; abbreviated Berks.) is a historic county in South East England. One of the home counties, Berkshire was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II as the Royal County of Berk ...

, England. The parish population is about 400, occupying some 150 dwellings.

History

The village was called ''Esshamstede'' in the 13th and 14th centuries. The

Church of England parish church A parish church in the Church of England is the church which acts as the religious centre for the people within each Church of England parish (the smallest and most basic Church of England administrative unit; since the 19th century sometimes ca ...

of Saint Clement dates from the 12th century. It has 13th century

fresco Fresco (plural ''frescos'' or ''frescoes'') is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaste ...

es and a 15th-century wooden bell turret. It is believed the frescoes may have been painted by monks from the nearby

Reading Abbey Reading Abbey is a large, ruined abbey in the centre of the town of Reading, in the English county of Berkshire. It was founded by Henry I in 1121 "for the salvation of my soul, and the souls of King William, my father, and of King William, m ...

. The only remaining bell dates from 1662.

Notable People

* The composer

Henry Balfour Gardiner Henry Balfour Gardiner (7 November 1877 – 28 June 1950) was a British musician, composer, and teacher. He was born at Kensington (London), began to play at the age of 5 and to compose at 9. Between his conventional education at Charterhouse ...

bought Field House, Ashampstead Green in 1909, moved in after alterations in 1911, and stayed until 1930. Many musicians, including Bax,

Delius Delius, photographed in 1907 Frederick Theodore Albert Delius ( 29 January 1862 – 10 June 1934), originally Fritz Delius, was an English composer. Born in Bradford in the north of England to a prosperous mercantile family, he resisted atte ...

Percy Grainger Percy Aldridge Grainger (born George Percy Grainger; 8 July 188220 February 1961) was an Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist who lived in the United States from 1914 and became an American citizen in 1918. In the course of a long an ...

Holst Gustav Theodore Holst (born Gustavus Theodore von Holst; 21 September 1874 – 25 May 1934) was an English composer, arranger and teacher. Best known for his orchestral suite ''The Planets'', he composed many other works across a range ...

and

Peter Warlock Philip Arnold Heseltine (30 October 189417 December 1930), known by the pseudonym Peter Warlock, was a British composer and music critic. The Warlock name, which reflects Heseltine's interest in occultism, occult practices, was used for all his ...

visited him there. The orchestral piece ''A Berkshire Idyll'' was completed there on 28 July, 1913.
British Tone Poems, Volume One
', Chandos CD 10939 (2017), notes by Lewis Foreman

References

Sources

* *

External links

Villages in Berkshire West Berkshire District Civil parishes in Berkshire {{Berkshire-geo-stub

History

Notable People

See also

References

Sources

External links