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Padworth
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Padworth
Padworth is a dispersed settlement and civil parish in the English county of Berkshire, with the nearest town being Tadley. Padworth is in the unitary authority of West Berkshire, and its main settlement is at Aldermaston Wharf or Lower Padworth, where there is Aldermaston railway station. It has its southern boundary with Mortimer West End, Hampshire. The south of the parish is wooded towards its edges and the north of the parish is agricultural with a hotel beside the Kennet and Avon Canal. In the centre of the parish is a Georgian manor house, later used as a school, Padworth College.
Padworth is built around the Norman church and the manor house, which from 1748 was the home of the Darby-Griffith family. In 1963 the house was converted into Padworth College, an independent school. In spring 2025, the school announced it would close at the end of the 2024–25 academic year, and the building put up for sale.
The two halves of the parish can be separated thus:
A 'fishery in the Kenette' was among the possessions of the manor in 1586, and a fishery is mentioned as early as 1378. There is a Scheduled Monument fish-pond north of the former manor house. In 1870 its property was valued at £1,839 (equivalent to £189,259 in 2025) while its population was much smaller than today, 298, living in 59 houses.
The whole parish is noted by the 1920s to be very well watered, and the north-eastern part draws on the natural advantage of a fairly flat landscape and water close to the surface from the River Kennet. The soil retains a strength from its inorganic layers being gravel and the subsoil impermeable clay. The local economy in the 1920s centred on the chief crops: wheat, barley, oats and root vegetables. These remain regular crops in Padworth alongside hay meadows for livestock, horses and donkeys.
Gravel extraction, education, agriculture, transport and tourism all provide jobs in Padworth itself. Aldermaston railway station at Aldermaston Wharf serves two of these sectors. Commuting to towns, industrial, logistic and trading business centres is the most common source of employment as at the 2011 census, with for instance Reading and Newbury about 20–30 minutes away whether by rail or by access to the M4 motorway. Tadley, the nearest town, also provides a major source of retail, leisure and general high street service employment.
Grim's Ditch which runs from the mid-south of the area 0.5 miles (0.80 km) (into the southern forest of Ufton Nervet) is posited to be a 'sub-Roman' bank and ditch dug to defend Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester) when the Anglo-Saxons began to settle in the area. The place is recorded in such documents as the Assize Rolls and national Feet of Fines (on property sale) as Peadanwurthe (10th century); Peteorde (11th century); Pedewurth (12th century); Padewrd, Padworze (13th century); Padesworth, Pappeworth (14th century).
A full descent of the manor, including its earliest known grant of 956 and during the Black Death, is provided by the fully referenced text of the Victoria County History for this parish, compiled here in 1923. A secondary manor of Padworth, Hussey's, existed under John de la Husse in the 13th century, after whom it was named. In the Domesday Book, 2½ hides were farmed; which was held by William de Ow and a man named 'Gozelin'. In this instance, its Saxon era owner was recorded as 'Ælfstan', with its nominal dues going to Edward the Confessor.
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Padworth
Padworth is a dispersed settlement and civil parish in the English county of Berkshire, with the nearest town being Tadley. Padworth is in the unitary authority of West Berkshire, and its main settlement is at Aldermaston Wharf or Lower Padworth, where there is Aldermaston railway station. It has its southern boundary with Mortimer West End, Hampshire. The south of the parish is wooded towards its edges and the north of the parish is agricultural with a hotel beside the Kennet and Avon Canal. In the centre of the parish is a Georgian manor house, later used as a school, Padworth College.
Padworth is built around the Norman church and the manor house, which from 1748 was the home of the Darby-Griffith family. In 1963 the house was converted into Padworth College, an independent school. In spring 2025, the school announced it would close at the end of the 2024–25 academic year, and the building put up for sale.
The two halves of the parish can be separated thus:
A 'fishery in the Kenette' was among the possessions of the manor in 1586, and a fishery is mentioned as early as 1378. There is a Scheduled Monument fish-pond north of the former manor house. In 1870 its property was valued at £1,839 (equivalent to £189,259 in 2025) while its population was much smaller than today, 298, living in 59 houses.
The whole parish is noted by the 1920s to be very well watered, and the north-eastern part draws on the natural advantage of a fairly flat landscape and water close to the surface from the River Kennet. The soil retains a strength from its inorganic layers being gravel and the subsoil impermeable clay. The local economy in the 1920s centred on the chief crops: wheat, barley, oats and root vegetables. These remain regular crops in Padworth alongside hay meadows for livestock, horses and donkeys.
Gravel extraction, education, agriculture, transport and tourism all provide jobs in Padworth itself. Aldermaston railway station at Aldermaston Wharf serves two of these sectors. Commuting to towns, industrial, logistic and trading business centres is the most common source of employment as at the 2011 census, with for instance Reading and Newbury about 20–30 minutes away whether by rail or by access to the M4 motorway. Tadley, the nearest town, also provides a major source of retail, leisure and general high street service employment.
Grim's Ditch which runs from the mid-south of the area 0.5 miles (0.80 km) (into the southern forest of Ufton Nervet) is posited to be a 'sub-Roman' bank and ditch dug to defend Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester) when the Anglo-Saxons began to settle in the area. The place is recorded in such documents as the Assize Rolls and national Feet of Fines (on property sale) as Peadanwurthe (10th century); Peteorde (11th century); Pedewurth (12th century); Padewrd, Padworze (13th century); Padesworth, Pappeworth (14th century).
A full descent of the manor, including its earliest known grant of 956 and during the Black Death, is provided by the fully referenced text of the Victoria County History for this parish, compiled here in 1923. A secondary manor of Padworth, Hussey's, existed under John de la Husse in the 13th century, after whom it was named. In the Domesday Book, 2½ hides were farmed; which was held by William de Ow and a man named 'Gozelin'. In this instance, its Saxon era owner was recorded as 'Ælfstan', with its nominal dues going to Edward the Confessor.
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