The name is Saxon for 'Street-Clearing,' the street being the north-south Roman road from Calleva (Silchester) to Dorcic (Dorchester-on-Thames). For many years, misguided Victorian antiquarians actually identified Streatley with the Roman town of Calleva, but the excavations at Silchester in the 1890s produced inscriptions that proved otherwise. There was a Roman settlement in the village, just south-west of the church, but it was very small. It was an ideal spot, for their was a second ancient track heading east-west that had a ferry crossing the Thames where the bridge now stands. It is known as the Icknield Way because it took Iron Age man to the land of the Iceni tribe in Norfolk, although it is considerably older.