Pangbourne

infobox UK place
static_

static_image_caption = Pangbourne Village Centre
country = England
official_name = Pangbourne
civil_parish = Pangbourne

unitary_england = West Berkshire
lieutenancy_england = Berkshire
region = South East England
constituency_westminster = Reading West
os_grid_reference = SU633765
latitude = 51.4839
longitude = -1.08691

Pangbourne is a large village and civil parish on the River Thames in the English county of Berkshire. Pangbourne is the home of the public school, Pangbourne College.

Location

Pangbourne is located some convert|5|mi|km|lk=on from Reading and convert|20|mi|km from Oxford on the River Thames and is directly across the river from the smaller Oxfordshire village of Whitchurch-on-Thames. The two villages of Pangbourne and Whitchurch are often considered as a single settlement, and are connected by both Whitchurch Bridge and by the weir of Whitchurch Lock.Ordnance Survey (2006). "OS Explorer Map 159 - Reading". ISBN 0-319-23730-3.]

Pangbourne railway station, on the Reading to Oxford railway line, serves both villages. The River Pang also flows through the centre of Pangbourne village before joining the River Thames between the lock and bridge.Ordnance Survey (2006). "OS Explorer Map 159 - Reading". ISBN 0-319-23730-3.]

Government

Pangbourne is a civil parish with an elected parish council. The parish covers the immediate area around the village, together with a rural area to the south-west. This rural area contains no other significant settlements, but is the location of Pangbourne College.cite web | url = http://www.election-maps.co.uk/ | title = Election Maps | publisher = Ordnance Survey | accessdate = 2008-02-27]

The parish shares boundaries with the Berkshire parishes of Purley-on-Thames, Tidmarsh with Sulham, Theale, Englefield, Bradfield and Basildon. Along the River Thames to the north, there is also a boundary with the Oxfordshire parish of Whitchurch-on-Thames.cite web | url = http://www.election-maps.co.uk/ | title = Election Maps | publisher = Ordnance Survey | accessdate = 2008-02-27]

The parish falls within the area of the unitary authority of West Berkshire. Both the parish council and the unitary authority are responsible for different aspects of local government. Pangbourne forms part of the Reading West parliamentary constituency.

The parish is twinned with Houdan in France.

History

Pangbourne's name is recorded from 844 as Anglo-Saxon "Pegingaburnan" (dative case), which means "the stream of the people of [a man called] Pǣga". This name was shortened to make the name of the River Pang.

In Norman times, the manor was given to Reading Abbey and the manor house - known as Bere Court - became the Abbot's Summer residence. The last abbot, Hugh Cook Faringdon, was arrested there in 1539 and subsequently executed in Reading. The manor was later purchased by Sir John Davis, the Elizabethan mathematician and the Earl of Essex' fellow-conspirator. His monument is in the parish church which, unusually, is dedicated to Saint James the Less. Other monuments and hatchments there are mostly to the Breedon family, the first of whom bought the manor in 1671. He was High Sheriff of Berkshire and brother of the Governor of Arcadia and Nova Scotia, whose son later succeeded him. The family produced a number of sheriffs and MPs for Berkshire, as well as doctors and rectors of the parish.

Kenneth Grahame, author of "The Wind in the Willows", retired to Church Cottage in Pangbourne. He died there in 1932. E. H. Shepherd's famous illustrations of his book are said to have been inspired by the Thameside landscape there.

References to Pangbourne in popular culture

*In the 1955 Ealing comedy "The Ladykillers", the gang's unwitting landlady, Mrs Wilberforce (played by Katie Johnson), mentions that she grew up in Pangbourne.
*Pangbourne is briefly mentioned in Jerome K Jerome's Three Men in a Boat.
*Pangbourne is mentioned as Judith's destination in the second episode of season two in the British sitcom As Time Goes By.
*In the 1963 film It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World Terry Thomas states that his brother-in-law is a secretary of a golf club in Pangbourne.

References

External links

* [http://www.berkshirehistory.com/villages/pangbourne.html Royal Berkshire History: Pangbourne]
* [http://www.pangbourne-on-thames.com/ Pangbourne village website]