Coley Manor and the Vachell Family (1309–1727)

From the early fourteenth century until the sale of 1727, Coley was effectively the Vachell family's country seat on the south-western edge of Reading. John Vachell (1287–1340) is the first member of the family known to have acquired land at Coley, purchasing it in 1309 from Thomas Syward of Reading. Over the next two centuries his descendants consolidated their position as substantial local landowners and as important figures in the administration of abbey and town.

By the late fifteenth century William Vachell II (1422–1481) and his son Thomas Vachell I (d. c. 1520) were acting as attorneys and officials, including service to the Bishop of Winchester. Their successor Thomas Vachell II (c. 1480–1553), Member of Parliament and sheriff, served as Steward of Reading Abbey and hosted royal officials at his house. Under him and his immediate heirs the family's Coley holdings began to crystallise into a recognisable manor, combining demesne, tenant land and associated rights.

The first substantial manor house on the estate, later known as Vachell House, was built c. 1555 by Thomas Vachell (1537–1610) on the banks of the Holy Brook, near the site of today's Coley Park Farm. It was this Tudor house, not the later Georgian mansion, that served as the core residence of the family. Vachell House was repaired and improved after the Civil War by Tanfield Vachell (1602–1658), a prominent Parliamentarian whose politics placed him at the centre of local and national upheavals but did not dislodge the family from Coley.

By the early eighteenth century the estate had passed to William Vachell. Encumbered with debt, he sold Coley Park in 1727 to Colonel Richard Thompson, a retired Jamaican merchant. With that transaction the Vachells' four-hundred-year tenure as lords of Coley came to an end, and the manor began a new phase under a succession of non-local owners.

Further Reading

• "Coley's Origins" (Coley Church website) for a concise local overview of the Vachell family and estate.
• Victoria County History, A History of the County of Berkshire, sections on Reading and Coley.
• Joan Thirsk, The Rural Economy of England: Collected Essays.