A laid-back English village takes the Clooneys in its stride

SONNING, ENGLAND: Everybody in the picturesque English village of Sonning knows where the Clooneys live.

“You go past the Bull Inn, then turn left down to the Thames, then left after the bridge,” says a hairdresser taking a lunch break in her beauty salon. “But you won’t see anything. Don’t bother.”

It is not only the estate that George and Amal Clooney bought in tiny Sonning in the county of Berkshire that is virtually hidden behind walls, trees and shrubs. The Hollywood star and his lawyer wife have themselves never been spotted by local villagers.

“I don’t know anyone who has met them,” the hairdresser says, declining to give her name, saying that a lot of nonsense has been written about the Clooneys in the press.

For example, the story about problems with their building plans: “I really don’t know where that’s coming from.”

If British media reports are to be believed, the couple bought the estate that stands under historic buildings protection for some 15 million dollars, giving them a hide-away a good hour’s drive west of London.

Looking across from a nearby bank of the River Thames, one sees a grey wall, a rooftop and two windows at the location that is marked on Google Maps with the words: “Clooney estate.”

According to the reports, the Clooneys made plans for some remodelling and construction that both the local district council and the neighbours were unhappy with. It is said that the issues concerned some surveillance cameras and the noise from the construction work.

According to a report in the local Henley Standard newspaper, the plans foresee building a swimming pool and pool house, a private home cinema, a new boathouse and fences.

Since then, the local South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse district councils confirmed that a tennis court has also been approved. Likewise, the surveillance cameras were approved “following the submission of amended plans reducing the height of two of the support poles.”

The hairdresser in Sonning dismisses talk of any problems with the neighbours.

“Apparently they (the Clooneys) did their research before they moved here. People don’t care,” she said.

That may very well be. There are a number of very large houses in Sonning surrounded by tall walls and many cameras, with very expensive cars parked outside.

One famous neighbour has just moved away after 35 years: the magician Uri Geller. As a farewell gift to Sonning he left behind a giant bent red spoon sculpture. But just recently, according to the BBC, the sculpture has been removed under mysterious circumstances.

The Clooneys can probably cope with Geller’s departure. According to the Evening Standard, the Hollywood mega-couple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, as well as singer Taylor Swift, are shopping around for a place in the area.

“Sonning is the fantasy version of England for Americans, Saudis and Russians. It is a contrast to central London. Here they can say they are part of a village community,” the Evening Standard cited an unnamed property agent as saying.

“The attraction for people is that these homes are difficult for the paparazzi to get to, but are still close to London with a country feel.”

In fact there is a farmstead with cows and pigs that can be heard from the street. Along the River Thames there is a picturesque trail. Weeping willows bow down, dipping their branches into the sparkling waters. There’s also a golf course and a couple of restaurants, and naturally the local pub, the Bull Inn.

“That’s where they are supposed to have been,” says the local newspaper delivery man Bill, who admits that he has never yet seen George and Amal Clooney. “All I know is that there are security guards around the house,” he says, adding that he’s really not all that interested.

It is pretty much the same nearly everywhere in Sonning. In the Bull Inn, one gets just a shrug of the shoulders, a friendly smile, and no comment. In the French Horn, whose cuisine George Clooney allegedly has praised, it’s the same.

Perhaps this is the real reason why the Clooneys and other stars are attracted to the area - the neighbours are pretty laid back

DPA Features