Childrey is a village and civil parish about 2+1⁄2 miles (4 km) west of Wantage in the Vale of White Horse. The parish was part of the Wantage Rural District in Berkshire until the 1974 boundary changes transferred the Vale of White Horse to Oxfordshire. The 2021 Census recorded the parish population as 527.

Childrey is a spring line settlement on the escarpment of the Berkshire Downs. The parish measures just over 5+1⁄2 miles (9 km) north – south but less than 1+1⁄2 miles (2.4 km) east – west at its widest point. Its highest point is a chalk hill on The Ridgeway about 2 miles (3 km) south of the village, which is at least 750 feet (230 m) high. In 1924 the parish covered an area of just over 2,700 acres (1,100 ha). Childrey village is on the B4001 road, which joins the A417 road about 2 miles (3 km) to the north. The B4507 road passes east – west through the parish just south of the village, and forms a crossroads with the B4001.

On the Berkshire Downs about 1+1⁄2 miles (2.4 km) south of the village are two Bronze Age bowl barrows. One is west of Hackpen Hill. It is 90 feet (27 m) in diameter and 4 feet (1.2 m) high. In the 19th century it was excavated and one cremation was found. The other barrow is just west of the B4001 road and about 1⁄2 mile (800 m) west of Hackpen Hill barrow. It is about 75 feet (23 m) in diameter and up to 3 feet 3 inches (1 m) high. Each barrow is a Scheduled Ancient Monument.

The Thames Water company workers and experts from Cotswold Archeology discovered 26 skeletons belong to Iron Age from graves found in Childrey in 2019. The site called Childrey Warren dates back to the Iron Age of England and is about 3,000 years old. According to CNN, Cotswold archaeologists have found a woman skeleton with her feet cut off and her arms attached behind her back. Based on the remains, it is believed that these people may have been the victims of human sacrifice. “The discovery challenges our perceptions about the past, and invites us to try to understand the beliefs of people who lived and died more than 2,000 years ago,” Neil Holbrook, head executive of Cotswold Archaeology stated about Childrey graves.

The earliest known records of Childrey Brook are as Cillarīþ in Anglo-Saxon charters from 940 and 944, now reproduced in the Cartularium Saxonicum. The name is derived from the Old English Cillan-rīþ or Cilloan-rīþ, meaning "Cilla's stream". This became the toponym for the manor and village, which an Anglo-Saxon will from 950 records as Cillariðe. The Domesday Book of 1086 and an entry for 1220 in the Book of Fees record it as Celrea. Its spelling evolved through Chilree in the 13th century and Chelrey in the 13th to 15th centuries before reaching its current form. About 1+1⁄2 miles (2.4 km) southwest of the village is Hackpen Hill. There are hills of the same name in Dorset and Wiltshire. The name may be derived from the Old English haca meaning "hook" and Old Welsh pen meaning "hill".

Before the Norman Conquest of England the manor of Frethornes was held by an Anglo-Saxon freeman called Brictric. The Domesday Book records that by 1086 it was held by a Norman, Turstin FitzRou. The manor's name comes from the de Frethorne family, who were tenants of the manor by 1166 and remained so until 1357. In 1514, the manor was recorded as being held by Baron FitzWarin and his heirs, who held the manor of Wantage. An annual payment of four bushels and two pecks of wheat from Frethornes to the manor of Wantage was still payable in 1771.

The manor of Mautravers was held by an Anglo-Saxon freeman called Edmund before the Conquest, and afterwards by Roger de Lacy. The manor got its name from several generations of lord of the manor who were all called John Mautravers or Maltravers, and who held it from the late 12th to the late 14th centuries. The earliest known John Mautravers held the manor by 1194 and died in 1201. A later John Mautravers supported Roger Mortimer de Chirk in his rebellion against Edward II in 1321–22. The rebellion was defeated and Mautravers' lands, including his manor at Childrey, were seized. They were restored to him in 1327 and he was summoned to Parliament as Baron Maltravers in 1330. However, in March of that year he was involved in the execution of Edmund of Woodstock, 1st Earl of Kent, for which he forfeited his estates again. This time Maltravers was condemned to death but he escaped to mainland Europe.

In Maltravers' absence Childrey was granted to John de Nevill of Hornby. De Nevill died heirless and Childrey was in 1336 granted to John de Ufford, but he too died without an heir. In 1348 Childrey was granted to Agnes, wife of John Maltravers, and he was again restored to all his estates in 1352. After Maltravers died in 1364, Agnes devoted the manor to the support of three chaplains at a chantry at the parish church of St Mary the Virgin, Lytchett Matravers, Dorset. In 1371 the three chaplains granted the manor to the vicar of Lytchett Matravers, and his successors retained the manor until Edward VI's abolition of chantries in 1547.