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Water Oakley
Water Oakley is a hamlet on the River Thames in the civil parish of Bray, in the Windsor and Maidenhead district, in the ceremonial county of Berkshire, England. It is the location of both Bray Film Studios and the Oakley Court Hotel. History It first appeared on maps around 1800. However, the name 'Oakley' is derived from the Old English ''ac-leah'' which translates as 'a clearing in an oak wood'. Local folklore suggests a Saxon The Saxons, sometimes called the Old Saxons or Continental Saxons, were a Germanic people of early medieval "Old" Saxony () which became a Carolingian " stem duchy" in 804, in what is now northern Germany. Many of their neighbours were, like th ... church there was demolished around 1293 to build St Michael's Church in Bray. Geography Water Oakley has a site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) just to the north of the village, called Bray Pennyroyal Field. Notable people * Manpreet Bambra, actress References External links {{Commons cate ...
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River Thames
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the River Severn. The river rises at Thames Head in Gloucestershire and flows into the North Sea near Tilbury, Essex and Gravesend, Kent, via the Thames Estuary. From the west, it flows through Oxford (where it is sometimes called the Isis), Reading, Berkshire, Reading, Henley-on-Thames and Windsor, Berkshire, Windsor. The Thames also drains the whole of Greater London. The lower Reach (geography), reaches of the river are called the Tideway, derived from its long Tidal river, tidal reach up to Teddington Lock. Its tidal section includes most of its London stretch and has a rise and fall of . From Oxford to the estuary, the Thames drops by . Running through some of the drier parts of mainland Bri ...
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Bray Film Studios (UK)
Bray Film Studios is a British film and television facility in Water Oakley near Bray, Berkshire. It is best known for its association with Hammer Film Productions. History Down Place Down Place, also written as Dowan Place or Dow Place, was a large Thamesside house in the Berkshire hamlet of Water Oakley, was built in the 1750s for Richard Tonson, the Member of Parliament for Windsor and relative of publisher Jacob Tonson. After Tonson's death in 1772, the family held onto Down Place until April 1775 when it was put up for sale. When Tonson's estate wasn't sold outright, it was planned to go up for auction on 12 July 1775. The auction of the estate and belongings was postponed until Monday 7 August, and was planned to last for the duration of five days. Sometime after the auction, the house was owned by the Dukes of Argyll and by 1792, it was home to John Barker Church. A later owner, Mr Hudleston, sold the property to Henry Harford in around 1807. The Harford family ...
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Manpreet Bambra
Manpreet Bambra (born 10 July 1992) is an English actress. She is known for her roles in the CBBC series '' Wizards vs Aliens'', (2012–2014), the Netflix series '' Free Rein'' (2017–2019), and the ITVX horror sitcom '' Count Abdulla'' (2023). Early life and education Bambra grew up in Water Oakley in Bray, Berkshire. She attended St. George's School, Ascot where she took LAMDA acting classes offered by the school. She was accepted to the National Youth Theatre. She took a gap year before university and later graduated with a Master of Science in Cosmetic Science from the London College of Fashion. Career Bambra made her acting debut in ''Our Time Alone'', a short film in 2009, portraying the role of Harpreet. Between 2012 and 2014, Bambra played the recurring role of Katie Lord in CBBC drama ''Wizards Vs Aliens''. Since then, Bambra had short stints in '' Corner Shop Show'', ''Doctors'', '' So Awkward'', ''The Dumping Ground'' and ''Casualty''. In 2017, Bambra began portra ...
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Bray Pennyroyal Field
Bray Pennyroyal Field is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest between Windsor and Maidenhead in Berkshire. This field is a filled in gravel pit next to the River Thames. It is the only site in the county for the nationally rare pennyroyal, which is listed in the British Red Data Book of vascular plants Vascular plants (), also called tracheophytes (, ) or collectively tracheophyta (; ), are plants that have lignified tissues (the xylem) for conducting water and minerals throughout the plant. They also have a specialized non-lignified tissue ( .... The site is grazed by horses, a management regime which is thought to be beneficial to the plant. The site is private land with no public access. References {{SSSIs Berks Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Berkshire ...
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Site Of Special Scientific Interest
A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain, or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland, is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle of Man. SSSI/ASSIs are the basic building block of site-based nature conservation legislation and most other legal nature/geological conservation designations in the United Kingdom are based upon them, including national nature reserve (United Kingdom), national nature reserves, Ramsar Convention, Ramsar sites, Special Protection Areas, and Special Area of Conservation, Special Areas of Conservation. The acronym "SSSI" is often pronounced "triple-S I". Selection and conservation Sites notified for their Biology, biological interest are known as Biological SSSIs (or ASSIs), and those notified for geological or Physical geography, physiographic interest are Geological SSSIs (or ASSIs). Sites may be divided into management units, with some a ...
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St Michael's Church, Bray
St Michael's Church, Bray, is a Grade II* listed parish church in the Church of England in Bray, Berkshire. History The church dates from 1293, supposedly to replace a Saxon church at Water Oakley. It was partly rebuilt ca. 1500 and extensively restored 1857–82 by Thomas Henry Wyatt. It has a number of sculptures which may have come from the earlier church, including a damaged Sheela na Gig. The ecclesiastical parish shares the wider parish boundaries so is named Bray St Michael with Braywoodside. In 1938, the royal funeral of George Mountbatten, 2nd Marquess of Milford Haven, was held at St Michael's, after which the marquess was buried in Bray Cemetery. Monuments The church contains several brasses from the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, notably that of 1378 to Sir John Foxley, the Constable of Southampton Castle. Other monuments are: *William Goddard of Philibert, d.1609, founder of Jesus Hospital, and Joyce Maunsell his wife, d.1622. *Mary Hanger (d.1738) scu ...
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Anglo-saxons
The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to Germanic peoples, Germanic settlers who became one of the most important cultural groups in Britain by the 5th century. The Anglo-Saxon period in Britain is considered to have started by about 450 and ended in 1066, with the Norman conquest of England, Norman Conquest. Although the details of Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, their early settlement and History of Anglo-Saxon England, political development are not clear, by the 8th century an Anglo-Saxon cultural identity which was generally called had developed out of the interaction of these settlers with the existing Romano-British culture. By 1066, most of the people of what is now England spoke Old English, and were considered English. Viking and Norman invasions chang ...
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Old English Language
Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th century, and the first Old English literature dates from the mid-7th century. After the Norman Conquest of 1066, English was replaced for several centuries by Anglo-Norman (a type of French) as the language of the upper classes. This is regarded as marking the end of the Old English era, since during the subsequent period the English language was heavily influenced by Anglo-Norman, developing into what is now known as Middle English in England and Early Scots in Scotland. Old English developed from a set of Anglo-Frisian or Ingvaeonic dialects originally spoken by Germanic tribes traditionally known as the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. As the Germanic settlers became dominant in England, their language re ...
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Oakley Court
Oakley Court is a Gothic Revival architecture, Victorian Gothic country house set in overlooking the River Thames at Water Oakley in the civil parish of Bray, Berkshire, Bray in the England, English county of Berkshire. It was built in 1859 and is currently a hotel. It is a Grade II* listed building that has been often used as a film location. Overview The Court was built in 1859 for Sir Richard Hall-Say who married Ellen Evans of Boveney Court in 1857. He was appointed High Sheriff of Berkshire in 1864 and Justice of the Peace in 1865. In 1874 Oakley Court was sold to Lord Otho Fitzgerald, then to a John Lewis Phipps and in 1900 to William Beilby Avery, Sir William Beilby Avery of Avery Weigh-Tronix, Avery Scales. In 1919 Ernest Olivier purchased the property together with of Berkshire woodland for £27,000. Sir Richard Hall-Say Richard Hall-Say built Oakley Court in 1859 two years after his marriage. He was born as Richard Hall in 1827. His father was Richard Hall, a merc ...
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Royal Borough Of Windsor And Maidenhead
The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead is a unitary authority area with royal borough status in Berkshire, England. The borough is named after its two largest towns of Maidenhead (where the council is based) and Windsor. The borough also includes the towns of Ascot and Eton, plus numerous villages and surrounding rural areas. It is home to Windsor Castle, Eton College, Legoland Windsor and Ascot Racecourse. It is one of only four boroughs in England entitled to be prefixed ''royal'', and the only one of them which is not a London borough. History The non-metropolitan district of Windsor and Maidenhead was created in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972, as one of six districts within Berkshire. It covered the whole area of five former districts and part of a sixth, which were all abolished at the same time: * Cookham Rural District * Eton Rural District (parishes of Datchet, Horton and Wraysbury only, rest split between Beaconsfield and Slough) * Eton Urban District ...
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Windsor, Berkshire
Windsor is a historic town in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead in Berkshire, England. It is the site of Windsor Castle, one of the official residences of the Monarchy of the United Kingdom, British monarch. The town is situated west of Charing Cross, central London, southeast of Maidenhead, and east of the modern county town of Reading, Berkshire, Reading. It is immediately south of the River Thames, which forms its boundary with its smaller, ancient twin town of Eton, Berkshire, Eton. The village of Old Windsor, just over to the south, predates what is now called Windsor by around 300 years. In the past, Windsor was formally referred to as New Windsor to distinguish the two. Etymology ''Windlesora'' is first mentioned in the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.'' (The settlement had an earlier name but this is unknown.) The name originates from old English ''Windles-ore'' or ''winch by the riverside''.South S.R., ''The Book of Windsor'', Barracuda Books, 1977. This etymol ...
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Civil Parish
In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, which for centuries were the principal unit of secular and religious administration in most of England and Wales. Civil and religious parishes were formally split into two types in the 19th century and are now entirely separate. Civil parishes in their modern form came into being through the Local Government Act 1894 ( 56 & 57 Vict. c. 73), which established elected parish councils to take on the secular functions of the parish vestry. A civil parish can range in size from a sparsely populated rural area with fewer than a hundred inhabitants, to a large town with a population in excess of 100,000. This scope is similar to that of municipalities in continental Europe, such as the communes of France. However, unlike their continental Euro ...
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