Sonning, Berkshire Family History Guide
Sonning is an Ancient Parish in the county of Berkshire.
Other places in the parish include: Woodley and Sandford, Woodley, Sonning Town, and Sandford.
Alternative names:
Parish church:
Parish registers begin:
- Parish registers: 1592
- Bishop’s Transcripts: 1592
Nonconformists include: Independent/Congregational, Primitive Methodist, and Roman Catholic.
Table of Contents
Adjacent Parishes
Parish History
The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales 1870
SONNING, a village and a hundred in Berks, and a parish in Berks and Oxford.
The village stands on the Thames, 2 miles W by N of Twyford r. station, and 3 ENE of Reading; was the seat of a bishopric, afterwards removed to Sherborne, and finally to Salisbury; retained an episcopal palace till the time of Elizabeth; contains a house in which Sydney Smith wrote “Peter Plymley’s Letters;’’ and has a post-office under Reading, and an excellent inn.
The parish comprises the liberties of S.-Town, Earley, and Woodley and Sandford, in Wokingham district, Berks, and the liberty of Eye and Dunsden in Henley district, Oxford. Acres, 9,813. Rated property, £15,083. Pop., 2,747. Houses, 566. Holme Park, Bulmershe Court, Earley Court, and Maiden Earley are chief residences. A cattle market is held every Monday at Loddon-Bridge. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Oxford. Value, £514. Patron, the Bishop of O. The church was restored in 1853.
A chapel of ease is in Eye and Dunsden. The p. curacy of Earley is a separate benefice. There are an endowed school with £30 a year, a national school, church lands £54, and general charities £101. The Reading cemetery also is in the parish.
The hundred contains 3 parishes, and 3 parts. Acres, 22,119. Pop., 8,268. Houses, 1,570.
Source: The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales [Wilson, John M]. A. Fullarton & Co. N. d. c. [1870-72].
The Parliamentary Gazetteer of England and Wales 1851
Sonning, a parish partly in the hund. of Binfield, county of Oxford, but chiefly in the hund, of Sonning, union of Wokingham, county of Berks; 2½ miles east-north-east of Reading, on the south eastern bank of the Thames, betwixt it and the line of the Great Western railway, which is here carried through a very deep cutting.
The parish includes the liberties of Early and Eye with Dunsden, and the township of Sandford with Woodley. Living, a vicarage, formerly in the dio. of Salisbury, now in the dio. of Oxford; rated at £26 7s. 1d.; gross income £614. Tithes commuted in 1816. Patron, in 1841, R. Palmer, Esq.
Here are 14 daily schools, one of which is endowed with £25 per annum, another with £10. Other charities, in 1836, £109 3s. per annum, of which part was applied to parochial purposes, and part to apprenticing poor children. Poor rates, in 1838, £232 13s.
The manor of Sonning was held by the bishops of Salisbury at the time of the Conquest, and the manor-house was, for some centuries afterwards, their occasional residence. Acres 9,450. Houses 403 A.P. £9,296. Pop., in 1801, 1,938; in 1831, 2,568.
Source: The Parliamentary Gazetteer of England and Wales; A Fullarton & Co. Glasgow; 1851.
Bankrupts
Below is a list of people that were declared bankrupt between 1820 and 1843 extracted from The Bankrupt Directory; George Elwick; London; Simpkin, Marshall and Co.; 1843.
Knott Henry, Sonning, Berkshire, builder, March 2, 1841
Parish Records
FamilySearch
Administration
- County: Berkshire
- Civil Registration District: Wokingham
- Probate Court: Court of the Peculiar of the Dean of Salisbury
- Diocese: Pre-1836 – Salisbury, Post 1835 – Oxford
- Rural Deanery: Pre-1847 – Salisbury, Post-1846 – Reading
- Poor Law Union: Wokingham
- Hundred: Charlton; Sonning
- Province: Canterbury