The United Reformed Church

Known until 1972 as the Presbyterian Church, it is a modest but very pleasing brick building of 1782 and is of considerable interest. It is the second oldest Non-Confirmist Church building in Berkshire (the oldest being the Waterside Chapel in Newbury, built in 1697) and though its interior fitings are not original it preserves, with its galleries, some of the atmosphere of 18th century worship. It was altered in 1865 by the addition of the two porches and the moving of the pulpit from the west to the east wall. This meant the removal of one of the three galleries, from which the fiddlers used to lead the music.

The Presbyterian congregation here dates from 1662 when two local clergymen, Richard Comyns of Cholsey and Thomas Cheesman of East Garston, were among many incumbents thrown out of their livings for refusing to subscribe to the Act of Uniformity. They were welcomed here by John Fuller one of the family whose members up to the beginning of this century were the principal landowners and farmers in the Astons.

At first a barn was used for worship, then a bigger barn in the yard of William Pope, maltster, was fitted up (it is recorded that in 1717 'there were two hundred hearers")

The present 'meeting house' was built in 1728 by Joseph and Richard Fuller who also provided a Manse (the same house was so used until 1971) and an orchard for the Minister.

There were regular ministers from 1705, not always orthodox Presbyterians as the number of these in England was rather small. George Mains, then Minister, and of the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion, started the first school in the village in 1827.

For 1873 the congregation became a 'sanctioned charge' of the Presbyterian Church in England (North London Presbytery) and so remained for 99 years until the formation of the United Reformed Church (Presbyterian and Congregational).