 To the west and north is Berry Brook, which joins the River Thames at Hallsmead Ait to the northeast.Gravel has been extracted from the River Thames floodplain between Caversham, a suburb of Reading, and Sonning Eye for much of the second half of the 20th century.The facility was previously owned by Redland plc before it was taken over by the French firm Lafarge in the late 1990s.