Lower Basildon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For the town in Essex, see Basildon
Lower Basildon is a village in the civil parish of Basildon, near to Pangbourne, in the English county of Berkshire. It is located at grid reference SU609787. It is the location of the parish church of St Bartholomew. The National Trust property, Basildon Park, is just above it.
Basildon Grotto, or The Grotto House, is located 0.8 miles (1.3 km) to the west on the road to Streatley. It is currently the headquarters of ISPAL (The Institute for Sport, Parks and Leisure).
The remains of a modest Roman villa were discovered here in 1839 during the construction of the Great Western Railway. The major finds were two superb mosaic floors which unfortunately were destroyed almost immediately, although one was drawn in some detail beforehand by the antiquarian Charles Roach Smith. Nothing of the villa remains today.
