Padworth is a dispersed settlement and civil parish in the English county of Berkshire, with the nearest town being Tadley. Padworth is in the unitary authority of West Berkshire, and its main settlement is at Aldermaston Wharf or Lower Padworth, where it has railway station. It has its southern boundary with Mortimer West End, Hampshire. The south of the parish is wooded towards its edges and the north of the parish is agricultural with a hotel beside the Kennet and Avon Canal. In the centre of the parish is a school, Padworth College, which is Georgian and a later incarnation of its manor house. Geography and amenities Padworth is around the Norman church and the manor house, which from 1748 was the home of the Darby-Griffith family but in the 20th century converted into Padworth College, an independent co-educational day and boarding school for students aged 13–19. The two halves of the parish can be separated and named: Lower Padworth or Aldermaston Wharf, is mostly concentrated along the A4 Bath Road – this area has the vast majority of homes. It is a built-up nucleated village and low rise locality. Padworth Common sometimes describes all of the scattered south but strictly speaking only includes land outside of the farmland of the former manor centred on the site of Padworth College. Economy Economic history A 'fishery in the Kenette' was among the possessions of the manor in 1586, and a fishery is mentioned as early as 1378. There is a Scheduled Ancient Monument fish-pond north of the independent school (former manor). In 1870 its real property was valued at £1,839 ( in general expenditure) while its population was much smaller than today, 298, living in 59 houses. Current economy The whole parish is noted by the 1920s to be very well watered, and the north-eastern part draws on the natural advantage of a fairly flat landscape and water close to the surface from the River Kennet. The soil retains a strength from its inorganic layers being "gravel and the subsoil impermeable clay". The local economy in the 1920s centred on the chief crops: wheat, barley, oats and roots. These remain regular crops in Padworth alongside hay meadows for livestock, horses and donkeys. Gravel extraction, education, agriculture, transport and tourism all provide jobs in Padworth itself. railway station at Aldermaston Wharf serves two of these sectors. Commuting to towns, industrial, logistic and