| Admin History | The origins of the company lay with the Goring and Streatley Gas and Water Order 1888, which authorised the Goring and Streatley District Gas and Water Company Ltd to provide and supply water and gas in the parishes of Goring, Oxfordshire, and Streatley, Berkshire.
The area to which it supplied water increased over time, and South Oxfordshire Water and Gas Company was incorporated by the South Oxfordshire Water and Gas Act in 1905. It supplied water to 100 square miles west of Caversham and Henley on Thames, comprising all or part of the parishes of Benson, Bix, Checkendon, Crowmarsh, Eye and Dunsden, Goring, Ipsden, Kidmore End, Mapledurham, Mongewell, Nettlebed, Newnham Murren, Nuffield, Rotherfield Greys, Rotherfield Peppard, Shiplake, North Stoke, South Stoke, and Whitchurch, all in Oxfordshire, and Streatley, in Berkshire. By 1945 they also supplied water to Ashampstead, Basildon, Moulsford and Pangbourne, in Berkshire, and Badgemore, Ewelme, Harpsden, Newington, Pishill, Stonor and Swyncombe, Oxfordshire. The water was pumped from wells at Goring and stored in reservoirs at Cleeve, Nettlebed and Woodcote. The company supplied gas (manufactured at Goring) to the parishes of Streatley, in Berkshire, and Goring, in Oxfordshire; this was later extended to South Stoke.
The gas undertaking was sold to Wallingford Corporation [see WA/] in 1948. The company was renamed South Oxfordshire Water Company. It amalgamated with Henley Water Company as the Thames Valley Water Board in 1960, under the terms of the Reading and Berkshire Water &c Act 1959. |