Three Mile Cross is a village in the

Borough of Wokingham Wokingham, or the Borough of Wokingham, is a local government district with borough status in Berkshire, England. Since 1998 its council has been a unitary authority, having taken on county-level functions when Berkshire County Council wa ...

Berkshire Berkshire ( ; abbreviated ), officially the Royal County of Berkshire, is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Oxfordshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the north-east, Greater London ...

, England, around to the south of

Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of symbols, often specifically those of a written language, by means of Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifacete ...

town centre. Along with the adjoining village of Spencers Wood to the south, it forms a part of the

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, w ...

of Shinfield. The Village also is home to the Mereoak Park & Ride & Mereoak Park. In the 1960s, the

M4 Motorway The M4, originally the London-South Wales Motorway, is the third longest motorway in the United Kingdom, running from west London to southwest Wales. The English section to the Severn Bridge was constructed between 1961 and 1971; the Welsh ele ...

was built and became an artificial barrier between the village and Reading. In the 1980s, the A33 Swallowfield Bypass severed roads to the Estate of Mereoak park lying in the Reading direction.

History

Three Mile Cross is best known as the home of the famous 19th-century author, Mary Russell Mitford who wrote a five-volume book of literary sketches entitled '' Our Village'', which is a series of stories and essays largely about the setting and people of Three Mile Cross. Just to the north-west of the village is the area of five manors called Hartley. During the 13th century, the college of

St Nicholas Saint Nicholas of Myra (traditionally 15 March 270 – 6 December 343), also known as Nicholas of Bari, was an early Christian bishop of Greeks, Greek descent from the maritime city of Patara (Lycia), Patara in Anatolia (in modern-day Antalya ...

de Vaux in

Salisbury Salisbury ( , ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and civil parish in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers River Avon, Hampshire, Avon, River Nadder, Nadder and River Bourne, Wi ...

was

Lord of the Manor Lord of the manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England and Norman England, referred to the landholder of a historical rural estate. The titles date to the English Feudalism, feudal (specifically English feudal barony, baronial) system. The ...

of Hartley Dummer. At the Dissolution of the Monasteries,

Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is known for his Wives of Henry VIII, six marriages and his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. ...

granted this manor for purchase by Sir

John Williams John Towner Williams (born February 8, 1932)Nylund, Rob (November 15, 2022)Classic Connection review, ''WBOI'' ("For the second time this year, the Fort Wayne Philharmonic honored American composer, conductor, and arranger John Williams, who w ...

(later Lord Williams of Thame). After his death in 1559, his possessions were passed to his daughters. Through various sales and transfers, other major landowners declaring ownership of the area in their title deeds include the Norreyses of Rycote, the Earls of Abingdon, the Jameses of Denford and the Benyons of Englefield.

Business

The Green Park Business Park lies half in the Hartley/Three Mile Cross area of Shinfield

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

and half in the Smallmead area of Whitley in

borough. The 2

megawatt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of Power (physics), power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantification (science), quantify the rate of Work ...

(peak) Enercon

wind turbine A wind turbine is a device that wind power, converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. , hundreds of thousands of list of most powerful wind turbines, large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, were generating over ...

, near Junction 11 of the M4, stands in Shinfield. It has been described as "the UK's most visible turbine". It was constructed in November 2005 and is owned by

Ecotricity Ecotricity is a British energy company based in Stroud, Gloucestershire, specialising in selling green energy to consumers that it primarily generates from its 87.2 megawatt wind power portfolio. It is built on the principle of heavily reinvest ...

. The blades are long, with a tower height of . At a wind speed of the machine generates 2.05 MW of electricity (less for lower wind speeds) and has the potential to produce 3.5 million units of electricity a year, enough to power 1,063 local homes. The

Courage Courage (also called bravery, valour ( British and Commonwealth English), or valor (American English)) is the choice and willingness to confront agony, pain, danger, uncertainty, or intimidation. Valor is courage or bravery, especially in ...

Brewery A brewery or brewing company is a business that makes and sells beer. The place at which beer is commercially made is either called a brewery or a beerhouse, where distinct sets of brewing equipment are called plant. The commercial brewing of b ...

, built in 1978, was also half within Shinfield. It was demolished in 2011.

References

{{authority control Villages in Berkshire Borough of Wokingham