Speen is a 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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

West Berkshire West Berkshire is a unitary authority in the ceremonial county of Berkshire, England. It is 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 Newbur ...

, England. It is north west of the town of Newbury, Speen has clustered settlements, the largest of which is Speen village, which is contiguous with Newbury, and the others, buffered from the town by the A34 road, are Bagnor, Stockcross, Woodspeen and Marsh Benham. Its other land is an approximately even mixture of woodland and agricultural fields including hay meadows for livestock feed and pasture. The area varies greatly in elevation, having the

Reading to Taunton Line Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of symbols, often specifically those of a written language, by means of sight or touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process involving such areas as word r ...

alongside the north bank 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 � ...

as its southern boundary and both banks of the

River Lambourn The River Lambourn is a chalk stream in the English county of Berkshire. It rises in the Berkshire Downs near its namesake village of Lambourn and is a tributary of the River Kennet, which is itself a tributary of the River Thames. The riv ...

in its north with elevated ground in between. Benham Park in the south-west of the area is a listed

landscape garden The English landscape garden, also called English landscape park or simply the English garden (, , , , ), is a style of "Landscape architecture, landscape" garden which emerged in England in the early 18th century, and spread across Europe, r ...

and house.

History

Wickham Heath occupies the far west of the parish and has plantations of trees, such as conifers which are felled for pulp and wood products. Speen has the frequently interrupted footpath marking the Ermin Way, the main

Roman road Roman roads ( ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Republic and the Roman Em ...

from

Corinium Dobunnorum Corinium Dobunnorum was the Romano-British settlement at Cirencester in the present-day English county of Gloucestershire. Its 2nd-century walls enclosed the second-largest area of a city in Roman Britain. It was the tribal capital of the D ...

(

Cirencester Cirencester ( , ; see #Pronunciation, below for more variations) is a market town and civil parish in the Cotswold District of Gloucestershire, England. Cirencester lies on the River Churn, a tributary of the River Thames. It is the List of ...

) 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 vi ...

(

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 ...

). The

Second Battle of Newbury The Second Battle of Newbury was a battle of the First English Civil War fought on 27 October 1644, in Speen, adjoining Newbury in Berkshire. The battle was fought close to the site of the First Battle of Newbury, which took place in la ...

during the

English Civil War The English Civil War or Great Rebellion was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Cavaliers, Royalists and Roundhead, Parliamentarians in the Kingdom of England from 1642 to 1651. Part of the wider 1639 to 1653 Wars of th ...

was fought at Speen on 27 October 1644.

Speenhamland The Speenhamland system was a form of outdoor relief intended to mitigate rural poverty in England and Wales at the end of the 18th century and during the early 19th century. The law was an amendment to the Elizabethan Poor Law (the Poor Relief A ...

in the

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

, now part of Newbury, was the home of the

Speenhamland system The Speenhamland system was a form of outdoor relief intended to mitigate rural poverty in England and Wales at the end of the 18th century and during the early 19th century. The law was an amendment to the Elizabethan Poor Law (the Poor Relief A ...

of outdoor relief.

Landmarks

Parish church

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 ...

Saint Mary the Virgin Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under titles of Mary, mother of Jesus, various titles such as Perpetual virginity ...

is late

Saxon The Saxons, sometimes called the Old Saxons or Continental Saxons, were a Germanic people of early medieval "Old" Saxony () which became a Carolingian " stem duchy" in 804, in what is now northern Germany. Many of their neighbours were, like th ...

and is the oldest church in

Berkshire Berkshire ( ; abbreviated ), officially the Royal County of Berkshire, is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Oxfordshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the north-east, Greater London ...

. It is the burial place of Giovanni Battista Castiglione (1515–98),

Elizabeth I Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was List of English monarchs, Queen of England and List of Irish monarchs, Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. She was the last and longest reigning monarch of the House of Tudo ...

's Italian tutor and servant, who was given the nearby Benham Valence house and park in 1570.

The Ladywell or lady well

The church was built near one of the holy wells of

Christendom The terms Christendom or Christian world commonly refer to the global Christian community, Christian states, Christian-majority countries or countries in which Christianity is dominant or prevails.SeMerriam-Webster.com : dictionary, "Christen ...

, which, is as with many wells, an enlarged spring. Tenuous local tradition says its water is able to cure eye diseases and other ills, and there have been reports it is haunted. Some of the village people have seen an old woman with white hair and wearing a blue rain mac wandering around the grave yard and up the path the well is situated on. The Ladywell was fenced off in the

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the reign of Queen Victoria, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. Slightly different definitions are sometimes used. The era followed the ...

Speen House

Next to the above sites are ramparts around the elevated Speen House, the latest incarnation of Speen

manor house A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were usually held the lord's manorial courts, communal mea ...

, which is mostly late 18th century, but incorporates a minority of building materials from its 17th century predecessor. Early historians have dated a few stones among the foundations to the

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

village of ''Spinae'', but it is more likely that these oldest stones were sourced and hewn for the late

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

manor house, nothing else of which survives.

Benham Park

Benham Park or Benham Valence Manor, is a landscape garden by

Capability Brown Lancelot "Capability" Brown (born c. 1715–16, baptised 30 August 1716 – 6 February 1783) was an English gardener and landscape architect, a notable figure in the history of the English landscape garden style. Unlike other architects ...

, centred on the house built by Henry Holland for William, 6th Baron Craven in 1775. It was later the home of his widow,

Elizabeth Elizabeth or Elisabeth may refer to: People * Elizabeth (given name), a female given name (including people with that name) * Empress Elisabeth (disambiguation), lists various empresses named ''Elisabeth'' or ''Elizabeth'' * Princess Elizabeth ...

, and her second husband, the Margrave of Anspach. Both the house and park are

Grade II* listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

. One of its pairs of grand and ornate gate piers (pilasters) is separately Grade I listed.

Transport

Speen railway station, on the Lambourn Valley Railway, served the parish until it was closed in 1960. The nearest railway station now is . The A34 road cuts through the middle of the parish in a roughly straight line north–south. It has the

nucleus Nucleus (: nuclei) is a Latin word for the seed inside a fruit. It most often refers to: *Atomic nucleus, the very dense central region of an atom *Cell nucleus, a central organelle of a eukaryotic cell, containing most of the cell's DNA Nucleu ...

of the village to its east close to one of the three Newbury junctions and the road proceeds to a junction with the

M4 Motorway The M4, originally the London-South Wales Motorway, is the third longest motorway in the United Kingdom, running from west London to southwest Wales. The English section to the Severn Bridge was constructed between 1961 and 1971; the Welsh ele ...

Chieveley Chieveley is a village and large civil parish centred north of Newbury, Berkshire, Newbury in Berkshire, close to the M4 motorway and A34 road (England), A34 road. Chieveley services are within the parish. Geography A map of 1877 gave the ...

. There are local bus services to Newbury,

Lambourn Lambourn is a village and civil parish in Berkshire, England. It lies just north of the M4 Motorway between Swindon and Newbury, and borders Wiltshire to the west and Oxfordshire to the north. After Newmarket it is the largest centre of r ...

and

Hungerford Hungerford is a historic market town and civil parish in Berkshire, England, west of Newbury, east of Marlborough, and 60 miles (97 km) west of London. The population of the parish at the 2021 census was 5,869. The Kennet and Avon Can ...

Demography

References

{{authority control Villages in Berkshire Civil parishes in Berkshire