Binfield Heath
The peaceful village of Binfield Heath, sits a few miles south of Henley-on-Thames, surrounded by some of Oxfordshire’s most beautiful countryside.
Although easily accessed from Reading, Henley or even London, this sleepy spot feels as though very little has changed for centuries.
The area has been settled for milenia, and remains of what is believed to be a Roman temple have been discovered on the north side of the village at High Wood.
Binfield Heath takes its name from the Saxon hundred of Binfield to which it belonged, along with much of the locality.
In 2019, the village revived the tradition of the annual 'wheelbarrow race', which used to run in the seventies and eighties between the Bottle and Glass Inn on Bones Lane and the White Hart at Shiplake Row (now Orwells restaurant), a distance of 1.2 miles. Pairs competed in fancy dress, with one entrant riding and the other ‘pushing’.
“The smell of that buttered toast simply spoke to Toad, and with no uncertain voice; talked of warm kitchens, of breakfasts on bright frosty mornings, of cosy parlour firesides on winter evenings, when one’s ramble was over and slippered feet were propped on the fender; of the purring of contented cats, and the twitter of sleepy canaries.”