Woodley is a town and civil parish in the Borough of Wokingham, Berkshire, England, east of Reading and joined to the neighbouring town of Earley, to the west, and from Wokingham. Nearby are the villages of Sonning, Twyford, Winnersh, Hurst and Charvil. History The toponym Woodley is derived from Old English words meaning "a clearing in the wood". Anciently, Woodley was part of the ecclesiastical parish of Sonning. Woodley was not mentioned in the Domesday Book. The first written record of the name was in The Register of St Osmund, which is housed in the archives of Salisbury Cathedral. St Osmund was Bishop of Salisbury between 1074 and 1099. The document states that St Osmund visited Sonning and says: "Osbertus de Woodleghe holds a dwelling house and yard and is able to pasture his pigs on the Lord of the Manor's woods". The 1550 Survey of Sonning, housed in Berkshire Record Office, includes the first modern spelling of the name Woodley. In the west of Woodley, Old Bulmershe Manor once belonged to the Abbey of Reading but was later the home of the Blagrave family and probable birthplace of the 17th-century mathematician, John Blagrave. The adjoining house of Bulmershe Court, otherwise Woodley Lodge, was built in 1777 by James Wheble. Bulmershe (also spelled Bullmarsh) Heath was a marshy area where bulls were pastured. The annual Reading Races were held from 1727 to 1814 on Bulmershe Heath. Horses were entered for the races at The Mitre Tavern in Reading. Owners living in Berkshire, Hampshire, Oxfordshire and Wiltshire could enter horses. The races were advertised in The Reading Mercury newspaper and ran every August. After 1814 they moved to Kings Meadow in Reading. In the 1820 enclosure of lands in Woodley, the two major landowners were James Wheble of Woodley Lodge and Robert Palmer of Holme Park in Sonning. People lost their rights to cut furze for fuel, catch rabbits and pasture their animals on Bulmershe Heath. In compensation, they were given the Poor's Gardens which were allotments on Headley Road. Woodley Lodge, later known as Bulmershe Court, was bought by Henry Addington, who lived there every summer 1790–1801. He was Speaker of the House of Commons and later 1801-1804 Prime Minister. He was a friend of William Pitt the Younger. Addington was the Captain Commandant of Woodley Yeomanry, a volunteer cavalry regiment formed by gentlemen and wealthy farmers who owned horses.