Beech Hill is a small

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

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 ...

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. It is in the south east of the

West Berkshire West Berkshire is a local government district in Berkshire, England, administered from Newbury by West Berkshire Council. History The district of Newbury was formed on 1 April 1974, as a merger of the borough of Newbury, Bradfield Rural Distric ...

unitary authority A unitary authority is a local authority responsible for all local government functions within its area or performing additional functions that elsewhere are usually performed by a higher level of sub-national government or the national governmen ...

area and bounds

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...

and

Wokingham district The Borough of Wokingham is a Districts of England, local government district in Berkshire, United Kingdom. It is named after its main town, Wokingham. Other places in the district include Arborfield, Barkham, Charvil, Earley, Finchampstead, H ...

Etymology

Beech Hill is a

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

name derived from the family of De La Bec, usually resident at

Aldworth Aldworth is a village and mainly farmland Civil parishes in England, civil parish in the England, English county of Berkshire, near the boundary with Oxfordshire. Orthography and slight change of name Aldworth was recorded in the Domesday Boo ...

, but who also had a home at Beaumys Castle, just over the parish boundary in

Swallowfield Swallowfield is a village and civil parish in Berkshire, England, about south of Reading, and north of the county boundary with Hampshire. Geography The civil parish of Swallowfield also includes the nearby villages of Riseley and Farley Hi ...

Geography

Beech Hill stretches from the

River Loddon The River Loddon is a tributary of the River Thames in southern England. It rises at Basingstoke in Hampshire and flows northwards for to meet the Thames at Wargrave in Berkshire. Together, the Loddon and its tributaries drain an area of . T ...

, just west of the A33 in the east, to Trunkwell in the west and to Clappers Farm in the north, and to the Hampshire border, above Fair Cross, in the south. The village sits on a small hill above the Loddon Valley at the junction of Beech Hill Road and Wood Lane. The

Foudry Brook Foudry Brook is a small stream in southern England. It rises from a number of springs near the Hampshire village of Baughurst, and flows to the east and then the north, to join the River Kennet to the south of Reading. The upper section is call ...

, a tributary of the

River Kennet The Kennet is a tributary of the River Thames in Southern England. Most of the river is straddled by the North Wessex Downs AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty). The lower reaches have been made navigable as the Kennet Navigation, which � ...

, and the Reading–Basingstoke

railway line Rail terminology is a form of technical terminology. The difference between the American term ''railroad'' and the international term ''railway'' (used by the International Union of Railways and English-speaking countries outside the United Sta ...

, run through the north of the parish.

Natural conservation areas

The Stanford End Mill and River Loddon site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) is partially within the parish, just to the south east of the village.

History

The

Camlet Way Camlet Way was a Roman road in England which ran roughly east–west between Colchester ('' Camalodunum'') in Essex and Silchester (''Calleva Atrebatum'') in Hampshire via St Albans (''Verulamium''). Camlet Way crossed the River Thames by bri ...

- the

Roman Road Roman roads ( la, viae Romanae ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, and were built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Re ...

which runs south-west from

Verulamium Verulamium was a town in Roman Britain. It was sited southwest of the modern city of St Albans in Hertfordshire, England. A large portion of the Roman city remains unexcavated, being now park and agricultural land, though much has been built upon ...

, modern

St. Albans St Albans () is a cathedral city in Hertfordshire, England, east of Hemel Hempstead and west of Hatfield, north-west of London, south-west of Welwyn Garden City and south-east of Luton. St Albans was the first major town on the old Roman ro ...

- joins the Devil's Highway at Fair Cross on Beech Hill's southern border and continues on westward to

Calleva Atrebatum Calleva Atrebatum ("Calleva of the Atrebates") was an Iron Age oppidum, the capital of the Atrebates tribe. It then became a walled town in the Roman province of Britannia, at a major crossroads of the roads of southern Britain. The modern villa ...

, modern

Silchester Silchester is a village and civil parish about north of Basingstoke in Hampshire. It is adjacent to the county boundary with Berkshire and about south-west of Reading. Silchester is most notable for the archaeological site and Roman town of ...

. On the Beech Hill side is The Priory, a 17th-century house on the site of Stratfield Saye Priory which was founded on the site of an old hermitage in 1170 and dissolved in 1399. Beech Hill House, of 1720, stands on the eastern side of the village. It is a Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

. Trunkwell House, on the west side, was originally the Tudor home of the Noyes family, the current English

country house An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a town house. This allowed them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these peopl ...

at Trunkwell was built in 1878 for a successful local business family and is now a hotel and restaurant. It is associated with the local

pub A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...

, The Elm Tree Inn. 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 St Mary the Virgin was built in 1867 by

William Butterfield William Butterfield (7 September 1814 – 23 February 1900) was a Gothic Revival architect and associated with the Oxford Movement (or Tractarian Movement). He is noted for his use of polychromy. Biography William Butterfield was born in Lon ...

and is Grade II* listed.

Transport

The nearest railway station is , east of the village, with services to and .

Governance

Beech Hill was originally part of the parish of

Stratfield Saye Stratfield Saye is a small village and civil parish in the Borough of Basingstoke and Deane and the English county of Hampshire. The parish includes the hamlets of West End Green, Fair Oak Green and Fair Cross. Etymology The name means 'Street-F ...

, a cross-county-border parish, most of which was in Hampshire. The part in Berkshire became a civil parish in its own right in 1894. In the 16th century, it was part of the

hundred 100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101. In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to de ...

Theale Theale () is a large village and civil parish in West Berkshire, England, southwest of Reading and 10 miles (16 km) east of Thatcham. The compact parish is bounded to the south and south-east by the Kennet & Avon Canal (which here incorpor ...

, but was later transferred to the hundred of

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 ...

which effectively ceased to function after 1886. By 1875, Beech Hill had become part of the Bradfield

rural sanitary district Sanitary districts were established in England and Wales in 1872 and in Ireland in 1878. The districts were of two types, based on existing structures: *Urban sanitary districts in towns with existing local government bodies *Rural sanitary dis ...

which, in 1894, became the

Bradfield Rural District Bradfield was a rural district in Berkshire, England, from 1894 to 1974. It was created under the Local Government Act 1894 from the Bradfield rural sanitary district, except the three parishes in Oxfordshire which formed the Goring Rural D ...

. From 1974 to 1998, it was part of the district of Newbury which is now the West Berkshire unitary authority. It is represented at Westminster by the MP for

Wokingham Wokingham is a market town in Berkshire, England, west of London, southeast of Reading, north of Camberley and west of Bracknell. History Wokingham means 'Wocca's people's home'. Wocca was apparently a Saxon chieftain who may als ...

Demography

References

External links

Beech Hill Village Web SiteThe Elm Tree Web Site
{{authority control Villages in Berkshire West Berkshire District Civil parishes in Berkshire