Location
Crowthorne is located in the Royal County of Berkshire close to the Hampshire and Surrey Borders.
The village of Crowthorne is split between the Unitary Authorities of Bracknell Forest Borough Council and Wokingham Borough Council and even those who live in the Wokingham Borough will tell you that they actually live in Crowthorne. There are few retail facilities within the Parish – a small parade of shops in the east (Greenwood Road), a craft village and a Garden centre to the north.
Nearby Crowthorne High Street is a popular and valuable shopping centre. It has two supermarkets (Co-op and Lidl), lots of cafes, a hardware shop, a butcher, a cobbler, several hairdressers, and lots of charity shops. There is a recreation ground with adjacent hall and a Parish Hall in Heath Hill Road. Originally part of the Parish of All Saints Wokingham, “Wokingham Without” (WWPC) comprised those parts of Wokingham “outside” (or without) the town forming a west facing crescent. Over time, land was transferred to other Parishes with just the area south of Wokingham remaining in the Parish today.
At the end of the 19th Century the area comprised 3 small hamlets within part of Windsor Forest – Heathlands (or St Sebastian’s, where the church is located), Gardeners Green and Holme Green with a population c400, the majority residing in the northern part of the Parish employed in forestry or agricultural work. Page 23 of 63 Good History link on WWPC website cites that the church was built in 1864 to provide a place of worship for a group of heathen people, known as “Broomdashers” because of their occupation. They were converted to Christianity from their pagan worship on peat altars with idols of broken crockery. In the early part of the 20th Century, Irish Travellers became first frequent visitors to the area, and then ‘settlers’.
Today there is a significant traveller population, particularly in the area near the Church. At the eastern end of the Parish, the Pinewood Sanitorium (1905?) was built for London sufferers of Tuberculosis; during the Second World War this became a Canadian Air Force Hospital (accounting for many of the War Graves in our Cemetery) and 40 years ago became Pinewood Leisure Centre, home to an extraordinary mix of clubs and societies (Allotments, Judo, Gym, Model Railway, Boxing etc.) operated by Wokingham Without Parish Council.
The southern area of the Parish expanded rapidly as an extension of Crowthorne village in the second half of the 20th century due to its proximity to the nearby technology and defence industries in Bracknell / Farnborough, to Heathrow Airport and London in general.
In 1967, the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) of the former Department of Transport was established in the east of the Parish, including a substantial road testing track. By the mid-1990s the population was around 8500, with 80%+ living in the southern sub urban area of the Parish. The majority of people in the southern part of the Parish, say that they live in “Crowthorne” (rather than “Wokingham Without”) as that is where the majority of local shops, schools etc. are located. That said, people arriving in the 1950s/60s are fiercely proud of the fact that they live in Wokingham Borough and not Bracknell Forest Borough.
To further complicate matters, the TRL part of the Parish was transferred from St Michael’s Easthampstead (Bracknell) to St Sebastian’s in 2012. In the last 5 years, the Parish has undergone a further step-wise expansion with major housing developments in the east of the Parish delivering c500 new house occupations at Oakham Park (116) and the development of the old TRL site and track (350 currently occupied). Plans for the TRL site (“Buckler’s Park”) include a further 786 homes (1,100 homes total), a new primary school (to be associated with the Crowthorne Church of England school in our neighbouring Parish), a community hub, a new pub and a substantial country park, Buckler’s Forest.
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Location
Crowthorne is located in the Royal County of Berkshire close to the Hampshire and Surrey Borders.
The village of Crowthorne is split between the Unitary Authorities of Bracknell Forest Borough Council and Wokingham Borough Council and even those who live in the Wokingham Borough will tell you that they actually live in Crowthorne. There are few retail facilities within the Parish a small parade of shops in the east...