Padworth proper is around the little Norman church and the old manor house, from 1748 home of the Darby-Griffith family but in the 20th century converted into Padworth College, an independent co-educational boarding and day school for students aged 13–19. The two halves of the parish can be separated and named:
Lower Padworth or Aldermaston Wharf, most concentrated along the A4 Bath Road – this area has the vast majority of homes. It is where built-up a nucleated village and low rise locality.
Padworth Common sometimes describes all of the scattered south but strictly speaking only includes land outside of the farmland of the former manor centred on the site of Padworth College.
Lower Padworth has Aldermaston railway station. Padworth has its southern boundary with Mortimer West End, Hampshire. The south of the parish is wooded towards its edges and the north of the parish is agricultural with a hotel beside the Kennet and Avon Canal.
Demography
Land use statistics are not available for this civil parish. These figures under the census heading 'Physical Environment' can be obtained for the broader ward of 'Mortimer' from the data pages of the last census from the 2005 Office for National Statistics survey.
Economy
Economic history
A 'fishery in the Kenette' was among the possessions of the manor in 1586, and a fishery is mentioned as early as 1378. There is a Scheduled Ancient Monument fish-pond north of the independent school. In 1870 its real property was valued at £1,839 while its population was much smaller than today, 298, living in 59 houses.
Current economy
The whole parish is noted by the 1920s to be very well watered, and the north-eastern part draws on the natural advantage of a fairly flat landscape and water close to the surface from the Kennet. The soil remains a strength its inorganic layers being "gravel and the subsoil clay". The local economy in the 1920s centred on the chief crops: wheat, barley, oats and roots. These remain regular crops in Padworth alongside hay meadows for livestock, horses and donkeys. Gravel extraction, education, agriculture, transport and tourism provide jobs in Padworth itself. Aldermaston railway station next at Aldermaston Wharf serves two of these sectors. Commuting to towns, industrial, logistic and trading business centres is the most common source of employment as at the 2011 census, with for instance Reading and Newbury about 20–30 minutes away whether by rail or by access to the M4 motorway. Tadley also provides a major source of retail, leisure and general high street service employment, the nearest town.
History
Grim's Ditch which runs from the mid-south of the area is posited to be a 'sub-Roman' bank and ditch dug to defend Calleva Atrebatum when the Anglo-Saxons began to settle the area. The place is recorded in such documents as the Assize Rolls and national Feet of Fines as Peadanwurthe ; Peteorde ; Pedewurth ; Padewrd, Padworze ; Padesworth, Pappeworth.
Manors
A full descent of the manor including its earliest known grant of 956, and during the Black Death is provided by the fully referenced text of the Victoria County History for this parish, compiled here in 1923. A secondary manor of Padworth existed under John de la Husse in the 13th century, after whom it was named. It farmed at the Domesday Survey 2½ hides, which was held of William de Ow by a man named 'Gozelin' and in this instance its Saxon era owner was recorded as 'Ælfstan' with its nominal dues the crown. The period of titled bearers owning either manor was when the main manor was held by Sir Benjamin Tichborne, bart. and the Forster baronets. The manor house is Grade II* listed. It was built afresh in 1769 by designs of John Hobcraft. It has plasterwork by Joseph Rose. Its entrance is a double-height space, a staircase with a wrought iron balustrade to three sides. It has a vaulted 3-bay arched arcadess on each floor to one side with Doric columnson the ground floor and columns with Adamesque capitals on the floor above.
Other land
Place names that were here in the 17th century are: Ball's Pidle, Yew Pidle, Pondes Close, Little and Great Burfeildes, Culmers Wood and Bartholomew's, Brickworth Coppice. The inclosure of the common land at Padworth was by its Private Act of Parliament of 1811 under the established limited compensatory procedures of the time.
Church
Architecture
The Church of England parish church of St John the Baptist is aisleless and built about 1130 with two three-light Tudor period ornately carved windows and with its vestry and porch having been added in 1890. A smaller Tudor window is pictured above, with two lights on the south-east square tower façade, above the font, which does not have the entrance. The roof of the nave was largely replaced in the 19th century. Rare features include the Norman chancel arch and north and south doorways, the semi-domed apse and the 18th-century monuments. It is listed in the top category of listed building, Grade I.
History
The church's advowson was from Priory of Monk Sherborne by the year 1291 when various of its tithes and donations provided the Prior's pension. Upon the Dissolution of the Monasteries the advowson was exercised by the Crown until the 19th century. A parish rentcharge totalling £250 in 1848 was received by the rector, the parishioners having commutated the tithes; the parish glebe stood at. By 1923 the rector's patron was the Lord Chancellor.
Anglican community
The ecclesiastical parish is united as part of the benefice of Stratfield Mortimer, Mortimer West End and Padworth which has four churches and two church schools. The church alternates its Sunday service between 9 am Eucharist and 6.30 Evensong.
