Theale () is a large village and civil parish in West Berkshire, England, southwest of Reading and 10 miles (16 km) east of Thatcham. The compact parish is bounded to the south and south-east by the Kennet & Avon Canal (which here incorporates the River Kennet), to the north by a golf course, to the east by the M4 motorway and to the west by the A340 road. The village's history is a good example of how different modes of transport have achieved dominance in England over the last three centuries, from road to canal to railway and back to road again. Toponymy The name is thought to come from the Old English þelu meaning planks. As with the village of Theale in Somerset, this probably refers to planks used to create causeways on marshes or flood plains. A local legend suggests the name Theale refers to the village's coaching inns, and its position as the first staging post on the Bath Road out of Reading – literally calling the village The ale. History Romans The old significance of the position of Theale is that it lay at the junction of two ancient natural routes, one following the Kennet Valley from east to west and another which exploited the valley of the River Pang to run at a low level through the Chiltern Hills from north to south via the Goring Gap. This latter route was taken by a Roman road which ran from Calleva Atrebatum (modern Silchester) north to Dorchester on Thames. Extrapolation of the known alignment from Silchester to near Ufton Nervet indicates a crossing point of the River Kennet just east of Tylemill Bridge. This Roman road has its equivalent in the modern A340 from Theale to Pangbourne. Roman remains were uncovered during the excavation of the Theale Old Gravel Pit, at the end of St Ives Close, for ten years after 1887. The Kennet Valley route, later the Bath Road, only became important after the foundation of the Anglo-Saxon borough of Reading in the 8th century. The Anglo-Saxons had abandoned Calleva Atrebatum, but the north to south route remained important to them as connecting the royal capital of Winchester with the boroughs of Old Basing near Basingstoke and Wallingford. Middle Ages From the early Middle Ages to the 19th century, Theale was mostly part of Tilehurst parish. The old parish boundaries around here were complicated, and