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Caversham is a suburb in the Borough of Reading which is a unitary authority in the royal, non-administrative, county of Berkshire, England. Caversham occupies much of the land of a geographically large medieval-founded village of the same name. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames on the opposite bank from the rest of Reading. Caversham Bridge, Reading Bridge and Caversham Lock (pedestrian only) provide crossing points, along with Sonning Bridge a few miles east of Caversham. Caversham was an urban district and part of Oxfordshire until 1911, when it was transferred to Berkshire and became part of the County Borough of Reading. Caversham extends from the River Thames floodplain up to just south of the Chilterns. Its named neighbourhoods are arbitrary divisions as green space is scattered throughout and forms an outlying buffer zone. These are Emmer Green (on postal district and on historic boundaries), Lower Caversham or Caversham (town/proper), Caversham Heights and Caversham Park Village (which is closer to the centre of Emmer Green than the main amenities or high street of Caversham). With the exception of the centre of Caversham and Emmer Green, which were traditional villages, most of the development occurred during the twentieth century. In 1894 the northern part of Caversham was separated to become the parish of Kidmore End and in 1911 when Caversham became part of Reading a section on the east was also removed from the parish and transferred to the neighbouring parish of Eye and Dunsden. [edit] History
The first written description of Caversham as Cavesham appeared in the Domesday Book (1086) within the hundred of Binfield. This entry indicates that a sizeable community had developed with a considerable amount of land under cultivation. Some time before 1106 a Shrines to the Virgin Mary was established in Caversham. Its precise location is unknown, but it may have been near the present St Peter's Church. It became a popular place of pilgrimage, along with the chapel of St. Anne on the bridge and her well, whose waters were believed to have healing properties. By the 15th century the statue was plated in silver; Catherine of Aragon is recorded as visiting here on 17 July 1532. The shrine was destroyed on 14 September 1538 under the command of Henry VIII. Only the well survives, now dry and surrounded by a protective wall, topped with a domed iron grill. A modern shrine to Our Lady has been re-established at the Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady and St. Anne. In the Middle Ages Caversham Manor was one of the demesnes of William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke and regent during King Henry III's minority. It was the place of his death. The medieval community was clustered on the north side of Caversham Bridge east of St Peter's Church, which was built in the 12th century. The third Earl of Buckingham donated the land for the church and neighbouring rectory, together with a considerable amount of land around it, to the Augustinian Notley Abbey near Long Crendon in Buckinghamshire. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, these lands were given to Christ Church.[1] The rectory stood in what is now Caversham Court park and herb garden where there are remains with information panels and flat foundation stones as well as a ha ha wall below giving a view over the River Thames and much of Reading and Tilehurst. In the Civil War there was fierce fighting around Caversham Bridge for a short time in April 1643.[2] Reading had been held by Royalists and was besieged by a Parliamentary force under the Earl of Essex. Royalists marched south from Oxford to try to relieve the town's defenders but were heavily defeated, and the town fell to the Parliamentarians a few days later. The fortified manor house was replaced by Caversham House and Park in the 16th century. Several houses have stood on the site, notably the home of William Cadogan. The present Caversham Park House, built in 1850, is occupied by BBC Monitoring, which is a section of the BBC World Service that analyses news, information and comment gathered from mass media around the world. It is also the premises of the BBC Written Archives Centre and BBC Radio Berkshire. The BBC announced in July 2016 that it planned to leave the site and transfer its operations elsewhere. Caversham was an urban district and part of Oxfordshire until 9 November 1911, when it was transferred to Berkshire and became part of the county borough of Reading. [edit] Research Tips[edit] Maps
[edit] Online Historical References
[edit] Nineteenth Century Local AdministrationEnglish Jurisdictions is a webpage provided by FamilySearch which analyses every ecclesiastical parish in England at the year 1851. It provides, with the aid of outline maps, the date at which parish records and bishops transcripts begin, non-conformist denominations with a chapel within the parish, the names of the jurisdictions in charge: county, civil registration district, probate court, diocese, rural deanery, poor law union, hundred, church province; and links to FamilySearch historical records, FamilySearch Catalog and the FamilySearch Wiki. Two limitations: only England, and at the year 1851. During the 19th century two bodies, the Poor Law Union and the Sanitary District, had responsibility for governmental functions at a level immediately above that covered by the civil parish. In 1894 these were replace by Rural and Urban Districts. These were elected bodies, responsible for setting local property assessments and taxes as well as for carrying out their specified duties. Thses districts continued in operation until 1974. Urban districts for larger municipalities were called "Municipal Boroughs" and had additional powers and obligations. Poor Law Unions, established nationally in 1834, combined parishes together for the purpose of providing relief for the needy who had no family support. This led to the building of '"union poorhouses" or "workhouses" funded by all the parishes in the union. The geographical boundaries established for the individual Poor Law Unions were employed again when Registration Districts were formed three years later. In 1875 Sanitary Districts were formed to provide services such as clean water supply, sewage systems, street cleaning, and the clearance of slum housing. These also tended to follow the same geographical boundaries, although there were local alterations caused by changes in population distribution. [edit] Caversham in Oxfordshire
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