at five miles, was a short stage and would have taken an hour. The 18th century highwayman, Dick Turpin, is said to have hidden in a secret room in The Old Lamb inn on Church Street on numerous occasions. In 1802, topographer James Baker chronicled the village, en route from Reading to Newbury, and described it as "inconsiderable". However, the wealth engendered by a continued growth in road traffic meant that the village entered its most prosperous era, expanding substantially in the earlier 19th century before the arrival of the railway. The growth of the village led to the creation of a separate ecclesiastical parish and the consecration of a new church in 1832. The road came back to life with the invention of the motor car, and the new status of the Bath Road as London's highway to Bristol was demonstrated on 23 April 1900, when the Automobile Club held a motor car reliability demonstration involving a cavalcade from London to Calcot Park, the home of Alfred Harmsworth who sponsored the event. Calcot Park was then just north of Theale parish. For the next seventy years, all the motor traffic between London, Reading and Bristol passed along Theale High Street. The development response was slow, however, and only two small housing estates were developed in the inter-war period. The first was Lambfields west of the church, and the second comprised Blossom Avenue and The Crescent in the north. Lambfields was named after the Old Lamb inn. Canal The Kennet Navigation opened in 1723 from Reading to Newbury. The Kennet and Avon Canal, extending from Newbury to Bath, was opened in 1810. Theale had its wharf at a location called Sheffield, in Burghfield parish and next to Sheffield Lock. Here, the road to Burghfield village crosses the canal by a single-lane swing bridge, now controlled by traffic lights. The canal was locally re-opened from the Thames at Reading to Hungerford wharf in July 1974. However, full restoration of the entire length to Bath was only completed in 2004. In 1983, West Berkshire Council declared the Sheffield Bridge Conservation Area to protect the swing bridge, Sheffield Lock and Sheffield Mill. In 2000, the canal towpath became part of National Cycle Route 4. It has the legal status of a cruiseway, a waterway devoted to recreational boat traffic, since 2011. Railway On 21 December 1847, the Great Western Railway opened railway station