Binfield Heath

Binfield Heath

The Bottle and Glass public house
Binfield Heath
Binfield Heath shown within Oxfordshire
Area 6.13 km2 (2.37 sq mi)
Population 709 (2011)[1]
• Density 116/km2 (300/sq mi)
OS grid reference SU7478
Civil parish
District
Shire county
Region
Country England
Sovereign state United Kingdom
Post town Reading
Postcode district RG9
Dialling code 0118
Police Thames Valley
Fire Oxfordshire
Ambulance South Central
EU Parliament South East England
UK Parliament
Website Binfield Heath

Binfield Heath is a village and civil parish in South Oxfordshire, England, 2.6 miles (4.2 km) SSW of Henley-on-Thames and 3.6 miles (5.8 km) northeast of Reading on a southern knoll of the Chiltern Hills. The village has a Congregational Church, ground for polo, Michelin star chef-run restaurant and public house. Twelve of its 294 homes are listed buildings.

Creation as a village

Until 2003, Half of Binfield Heath and the hamlet of Crowsley were the western part of the civil parish of Shiplake with the rest in the parish of Eye & Dunsden. This almost exactly rectangular tract of land acquired its own civil parish in 2003. Having some other amenities, Binfield Heath meets the criteria of a village — omitting the old criterion of an Anglican place of worship to give the contemporary definition of a village. The central community is green buffered but not isolated, as it is a relatively small knoll in the foothills of the Chiltern Hills: Dunsden church is 0.5 miles (0.80 km) south-west and both communities are combined with the ecclesiastical parish today of Shiplake.[2]

Geography

Two cottages in the south-west of Binfield Heath near to the main area of woodland, forming part of the background.

Binfield Heath has an almost continuous street of Victorian properties, Shiplake Row, which leads 0.5 miles (0.80 km) and descends 25 metres to the nucleus of the larger village of Shiplake by the River Thames. The village has an independent Christian place of worship covering a larger ecclesiastical area of its own, a Congregational church.[3]

Crowsley Park Wood is the parish's largest woodland and is the opposite side of the village from the combined 'Comp Wood, The Common and Oakhouse Wood' and the field-surrounded Kings Common woodland.

Landmarks

Crowley Park House
20th century homes around a green junction in the nucleus of the village.

The Crowsley Park estate, including a Grade II (initial category) listed, 18th century mansion house, a grotto, barns and a stable, is west of the village centre which has the vast majority of buildings in the village. In the heart of the village and to the west and south are eleven other homes, equally listed: Jasmine Cottage, Freize Farmhouse, The Well House, Fir Tree Cottage, Thatched Cottage, Shiplake Rise Cottage, Holmwood, The Bottle and Glass, The Old House, Coppice Cottage, Elm Tree Farmhouse, Hampstead Farm Stable, and seven barns.[4]

Congregational church

The Congregational Church was built in a Gothic Revival style in 1835, an early embellished example of what was considered a nonconformist and which remains a Protestant place of worship.[5]

Amenities

Demography

The population rose by 9.6% in the ten years to 2011 (from 643 in 2001 to 709).

2011 Census Key Statistics
Output areaPopulationHomes% Owned outright% Owned with a loankm2km2 Greenspace[n 1]km2 gardenskm2 road and rail[1]
Binfield Heath (civil parish)70929453.7%36.1%6.135.620.220.10

Nearest places

Notes and references

Notes
  1. ↑ Comprises here cultivated fields, woodland, pasture, a public green and no marshland.
References
  1. 1 2 Key Statistics: Dwellings; Quick Statistics: Population Density; Physical Environment: Land Use Survey 2005
  2. ↑ Parish of Binfield Heath The Church of England. Retrieved 2014-11-27
  3. ↑ Binfield Heath website
  4. ↑ Listed Buildings Mapsearch Archived 24 April 2012 at the Wayback Machine. English Heritage. Retrieved 2014-11-27
  5. ↑ Sherwood, Jennifer; Pevsner, Nikolaus (1974). The Buildings of England: Oxfordshire. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. p. 590. ISBN 0-14-071045-0.
  6. ↑ Orwells Restaurant
  7. ↑ Binfield Heath Polo Club

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