Ufton Nervet is a village and civil parish in West Berkshire, England centred west southwest of the large town of Reading and 7 miles
east of Thatcham. Ufton Nervet has an elected civil parish council.
Toponymy
"Ufton" is derived from the Old English Uffa-tūn = "Uffa's farmstead"; the Domesday Book of 1086 records it as Offetune.
Geography
Ufton Nervet is a strip parish about long and up to wide, running roughly north-northwest – south-southeast between the Kennet valley and the crest of low hills in its south. It is bounded to the north by the A4 road, to the south by a minor road linking Burghfield and Tadley, and to the west and east by a mixture of field boundaries and minor roads. It includes a section of the River Kennet, the Kennet Navigation and the railway between Reading and Taunton.
Ufton Nervet village is a nucleated village close to the parish's eastern boundary, less than a mile from Burghfield Common and Sulhamstead. Two minor roads link the village with the A4, crossing the canal and the railway line in the valley bottom. Both lanes cross the canal by swing bridges. The larger, Tyle Mill Road, passes through part of Sulhamstead and crosses the railway by a bridge. The smaller, Ufton Lane, passes through Ufton Green and used to cross the railway by a level crossing, replaced by a bridge in December 2016. Other lanes link the village with Burghfield Common, Sulhamstead Abbots and Mortimer. Its direct link with Padworth to the west is a footpath past Ufton Court; the only road links with Padworth are circuitous ones via the southern or northern edges of the parish.
History
thumb|right|A [[British Bronze Age|Bronze Age spearhead, found in Ufton Nervet in 2007 and dated to BCE]]
Archaeology
Excavation of a site at Ufton Green found a number of scattered Mesolithic stone artefacts. They are interpreted as evidence of stone-working to make tools or weapons.
Manors
Three manors have existed in this area: Ufton Robert, Ufton Nervet and Ufton Pole. The Domesday Book records the first two.
The original Ufton Nervet, also called Ufton Richard, was about northwest of the current village, at the current site of Ufton Green. and is a scheduled monument. The place was named after Richard Neyrvut, later corrupted to Nervet, who held the manor in the 13th century. An artificial stream, controlled by a set of sluices, fed the moat and ponds. Excavations in the 19th century found bridge piles, a gateway and other foundations.
thumb|Ufton Court
The Perkyns family held the manor from about 1411.
In 1434–35 the parishes of Ufton Nervet and Ufton Robert were merged and Ufton Robert's parish church of St Peter was made the church of the merged parish. Some eminent fellows of the college went on to serve as rectors of the parish, including Henry Beeke (1789-1819, botanist and creator of income tax), James Fraser (1860-1870, future Bishop of Manchester), In front of the porch is a mature yew tree.
The church has been redundant since the 1990s, and the building now operates as a community centre and Scout venue under the name The Spire. The ecclesiastical parish church is today that of St Mary's Sulhamstead Abbots and Bannister with Ufton Nervet, located to the east of Ufton Nervet.
The Spire contains church monuments salvaged from the medieval church. They include one to Richard Perkins (died 1560) with Corinthian columns, one to Francis and Anna Perkyns (died 1615–16 and 1635) with recumbent effigies and a brass to William and Constantia Smith (died 1627 and 1610).