[Sonning Bridge]

(New) Sonning-on-Thames

See an online Sonning group website
including a message board, photographs, calendar, etc.
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(New) Sonning Regatta 2006 photographs (and additional photographs)
See also Wikipedia entry

(see also Sonning Regatta 2004 photographs and Sonning Jubilee Regatta, 1st June 2002 results and photographs)


This page provides information on the neighbouring villages of (New) Sonning-on-Thames (Berkshire) and Sonning Eye (Oxfordshire) on the River Thames:
[St. Andrew's Church tower]

Residents

[Photograph of Theresa May]

Around Sonning

River Thames

 Thames Head ("Source of the Thames") - Lechlade - Kelmscott - Godstow - Oxford - Sandford - Nuneham Courtney - Abingdon - Clifton Hampden - Dorchester - Wittenham Clumps - Wallingford - Goring - Pangbourne - Whitchurch-on-Thames Reading and Caversham - Sonning - Shiplake and Wargrave - Henley - Hambledon Mill - Marlow - Cookham - Cliveden - Maidenhead - Bray - Windsor and Eton - Chertsey - Walton-on-Thames - Kingston - Richmond - Kew Gardens - London - Greenwich

See also Old Father Thames.

Poem about Sonning:

Is there a spot more lovely than the rest,
By art improved, by nature truly blest?
A noble river at its base running,
It is a little village known as Sonning.

James Sadler, bee keeper, poet, Sonning lock keeper (1845-1885).

Note: the original pronounciation of Sonning rhymed with "running" and indeed it used to be spelt "Sunning". The name derives from the Viking name "Sunna". Cf. Sunbury-on-Thames, Sunningdale, Sunningvale and Sunningwell.

Extract from Chapter XIV of Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927):

The river up to Sonning winds in and out through many islands, and is very placid, hushed, and lonely. Few folk, except at twilight, a pair or two of rustic lovers, walk along its banks. `Arry and Lord Fitznoodle have been left behind at Henley, and dismal, dirty Reading is not yet reached. It is a part of the river in which to dream of bygone days, and vanished forms and faces, and things that might have been, but are not, confound them.

We got out at Sonning, and went for a walk round the village. It is the most fairy-like little nook on the whole river. It is more like a stage village than one built of bricks and mortar. Every house is smothered in roses, and now, in early June, they were bursting forth in clouds of dainty splendour. If you stop at Sonning, put up at the "Bull," behind the church. It is a veritable picture of an old country inn, with green, square courtyard in front, where, on seats beneath the trees, the old men group of an evening to drink their ale and gossip over village politics; with low, quaint rooms and latticed windows, and awkward stairs and winding passages.

We roamed about sweet Sonning for an hour or so, and then, it being too late to push on past Reading, we decided to go back to one of the Shiplake islands, and put up there for the night. It was still early when we got settled, and George said that, as we had plenty of time, it would be a splendid opportunity to try a good, slap-up supper. He said he would show us what could be done up the river in the way of cooking, and suggested that, with the vegetables and the remains of the cold beef and general odds and ends, we should make an Irish stew.

See also (large!) full source text of the book.

Other quotes about Sonning:

"The view of the church and bridge from the tow-path is one of the best composed groups for a landscape painter I ever saw."
George D. Leslie, R.A. (Our River, London: Bradbury Agnew & Co., 1881)

"The floral tastes of the lock-keeper generally make Sonning Lock very bright and gay."

"A few minutes' walk inland will disclose as pretty a little place as can well be desired, containing many excellent houses ... and with good old-fashioned gardens."

Charles Dickens (1882)

"There is no other village on the Thames to compare with Sonning."
R.R. Bolland (In the Wake of Three Men in a Boat, Tonbridge Wells: Oast Books, 1995)

"Turn off the busy A4 down Sonning Lane, and at once you sense the magic . . ."
"It is difficult to realize today, wandering around this small, peaceful village, that a thousand years ago it was the nerve centre of one of the largest parishes in Wessex, stetching from Sonning Common to Sandhurst. It boasted, in the 10th and 11th centuries, its own Saxon Bishops, three of whom became Archbishops of Canterbury; . . . and was very much on the map when Reading was but a huddle of huts hugging the banks of the Kennet."
(The Old Berkshire Village Book, Newbury: Countryside Books, 1972)

"Let's land at the lawn of the cheery White Hart
Now gay with the glamour of June;
For here we can lunch to the music of trees
In the sight of the swift river running.
Offcuts of cold beef and a pure Cheddar cheese,
And a tankard of bitter, at Sonning
Lays of a Lazy Minstrel (Punch magazine, early 20th century)

There have been ??? visitors to this page since 5th May 1996.

Search for more Sonning-on-Thames links from Google.

This page was first mentioned in the July 1996 issue of the Sonning Parish Magazine.

See also:


Irish and British Villages Villages Online

Information provided by Jonathan Bowen (a resident of Sonning Eye) as part of the Museophile archive.
Last updated 28 May 2006.