Theale

Theale stands on the former Bath Road, (it is now by-passed), just beyond Reading's western edge. It is a blend of residential and industrial development but its main shopping street retains something of the atmosphere of the days when the stage coaches thundered through.
Of the former coaching inns several survive. The quaintly thatched 'Lamb' in Theale dates from the l6th century and retains original timbers.
The White Hart is built so as to face both ways along the road.

Towering over the centre of Theale is the parish church, a rather remarkable building of the 1820s, very clearly modelled in its style on the early English work of Salisbury Cathedral. A very curious choice for the 1820s, the building was paid for by Mrs Sophia Sheppard who was sister of the rector of Theale. Mrs. Sheppard's tomb is within the chantry chapel that was removed here from Oxford's Magdalen College.