It would not be practicable to provide a full history of the Parish in this short section. Other publications amply describe our general history, notably Dick Greenaway’s “Yattendon for Visitors -
third edition 2004”. Instead a flavour of Yattendon and Burnt Hill history follows.

Evidence of people in the area goes back to the Mesolithic Period (c.10,000 - c.4,500BC). A
Mesolithic flint tool was discovered on the outskirts of Yattendon at Coombe House. Farming began locally in the Neolithic Period (c.4,500 - c.2,000BC) providing the ancestry of the giant
tractors now a feature of life in Yattendon.

Habitation continued to a greater or lesser extent in the area from those remote periods to the
present day. The first documentary reference to Yattendon's place name gives it as ‘Geat inga
denu’ which means ‘Geat’s peoples’ hollow’. In 1086 the Domesday Book named it “Etingdene”
assessing the village for taxation purposes as about one thousand acres.
Yattendon was a Royal Manor at the time of the Norman conquest and subsequently passed via many ownerships - including the Norreys family and the Waterhouse family - until it was purchased by Sir Edward Iliffe in 1925.

The development of Yattendon as a local commercial centre as far back as the 13th century,
lives on today. As well as farming, many other trades were practised in the area over the years,
including blacksmithing, wagon building and brick making. During the Waterhouse tenure in the late 19th century and early 20th century a craft industry made copper and brass items.

In 1448 a licence was granted to the Norreys family to build and fortify a Manor House. This was the headquarters of a farming estate. The original house no longer exists. It was replaced by a larger house in the late 17th century and this, itself, has been extended several times. The position of the original house on the western edge of the village astride the road to Hampstead Norreys required the road to be diverted and caused the awkward bend in the Pangbourne road as it enters the Square.

At the same time that The Manor House was built, the pair of splendid barns, which still exist, were
constructed. The larger is the eleven bay wheat barn and the smaller the barley barn, the former
commonly referred to, incorrectly, by local people as the ‘Tithe Barn’. The 1448 licence also gave the Norreys the right to empark 600 acres but in fact a much smaller area was converted to be a deer park. This included the present Yattendon Park and the hill on which Yattendon Court now stands.

The first phase of the present church was also built around the same time as the Manor House,
although there was certainly a church of some sort before that as the list of rectors goes back to 1297. However, no trace of this has yet been found and it was probably on the site of the present church. The Square was built up to accommodate a market with the houses round the Square built as planned units. “Saddlers Cottage” for instance probably dates from the 15th century as do the
buildings hidden behind the false front of “The Royal Oak”. The Square was also the site of the
Yattendon Revel which during the Post Medieval period was a famous event. It featured single stick
fighting for the prize of a gold braided hat (points awarded when the blood ran), grinning through a
horses collar for a prize of tobacco and foot races for the young women for the prize of a Holland
smock. Today's fete, although perhaps more varied, might be considered tame in comparison!

Burnt Hill has little documentary history. It seems to have been established as a brick making
settlement in the 18th century. Its name probably refers to the glow in the sky caused by the firing of
open topped brick kilns or brick clamps. Throughout history successive new owners have each made changes in their turn. In recent times Alfred Waterhouse's Yattendon Court was replaced with the present building: Lord Iliffe provided a Village Hall, new houses have been built for estate workers and homes provided for retired workers. Thus the life of a country parish goes on.