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Wendy Raeside sent in these snippets of local history:
The now famous College in Crowthorne was designed as a living tribute to Wellington, to educate the orphans of soldiers who served in the Napoleonic Wars. However civilian children were also welcome. Queen Victoria laid the foundation stone in 1859.
Crowthorne's oldest pub, The Iron Duke, closed to customers in May 2009 when a development company bought it.
Crowthorne celebrated being one of the first places in the country to have a Scout Pack by giving a plaque pride of place in the High Street earlier this year. Just two years after Lord Baden-Powell started the Scouting Movement, Crowthorne began a pack in 1909.
Richard Walton reports that in the early 20th century South Hill Park Mansion had a large lake in front of it. During this time, The Royal Sea Bathing Hospital, having been evacuated from Margate, occupied the Mansion.
The top of the Cabbage Hill road near Binfield was removed as it was thought to be too steep for safety.
Ranelagh School was inaugurated 300 years ago and it is 100 years since it was located in Bracknell.
There were many brick yards in Bracknell. Bracknell Bricks have been used in the building of many famous places: 10 Downing Street, Eton College, Harrow School, Windsor Castle, Madame Tussauds, Royal Holloway College, Hampton Court, Westminster Cathedral and, locally, South Hill Park.
 The famous 'Threepenny Bit' hexagonal tower block, Point Royal, was built in 1964 in Easthampstead. The designers are Arup Associates famous for also designing the Sydney Opera House. It has 17 floors with 102 flats and the building structure is on the outside which gives privacy to the occupants. In 1996 the building and its surroundings became a Conservation Area.
Photo Bracknell Standard
 Broadmoor Hospital, built in 1863, is one of only three high security hospitals in England. The hospital is planned to be rebuilt in a multi-million pound scheme. It would be good for the Borough if a wing of the old building became a Heritage Centre to retain all the history.
Photo Bracknell Standard
Historical Snippets contributed by Robin Seward, our Historian
The recent heavy snow brought down a cedar tree near the Warfield Road. A count of the rings indicated it was about 110 years old and part of the estate of the near-by 'Georgian' Cedar House.
The melting of the snow in fields around Warfield Church and at Priory Field, Harvest Ride, showed the locations of old 'farming strips'. The flints used to divide the strips and to make a path alongside were the last areas to melt.
The "Three Legged Cross" (the old New Inn) has been sold but is still a pub serving food. It is next to the Botts Bridge, on Warfield Street.
When it was still a Pub, there was a photograph in the bar (the one to the west), taken in the late 1920's, of the Petrol Pumps, which were situated to south of the pub (in what is now a garden). The photograph of the pumps shows, I believe, the old fashioned twin circular glass cylinders, with gravity feed and tap, type of pump. The "Three Legged Cross" building has still the "vent pipe", from the petrol tanks, on the south-west corner of the main building.
I think this photograph ought to be kept by the Council as a record of one of the earliest pumps in the UK (Ihave always understood that the old Warfield Garage (next door) was the oldest Garage in the UK - see The Guinness Book of Records. some years ago).
This location is of great historic significance, being connected with the old Georgian Butchers on Avery Lane (next to the Pub), and the fact that the Drovers once used the Pub, and, it was an old toll road Pub as well. It traces the history of "Roads", and the vehicles, from the horse, through horse drawn vehicles, and through to the present day transport.
To the north of Bracknell Town, in the Quelm Park area, there were many apple orchards. Due to an infestation of caterpillars, chickens were put in the orchards to eat them. Bracknell had the third largest egg auction in the country to sell all the eggs!
Residents with money planted damson trees around their orchards. It showed they had staff to cook the damsons as you could not eat them raw! There is now information about this area on the Larks Hill noticeboard.
Sperry Gyroscope was the area's major employer in the 1960s. The company commissioned a 4.5 metre tall sculpture which was created by Phillip Bentham in 1967 and cast by the world famous Morris Singer foundry at Basingstoke. It is now on the 'Sperry Roundabout' on the Wokingham Road
St Joseph's Roman Catholic Church was started in Bracknell in 1894 in 'a tin hut' where the British Legion is now. The present church was designed in 1956 by a famous architect, Anthony Sargeant and was opened in 1962. He was influenced by a visit to Scandinavia. The roof tiles were made in Bracknell.
Priory Lane and Old Priory Lane, in Warfield/North Bracknell was once a Roman Road (From the settlement at Coxes Green).
The standard railway gauge, in most of the world, (and in the UK) is the same as the old Roman Chariots – 4’ 8 ½” (143.5cm).
There was an old Roman “loom weight” found just off Priory Lane in the 1930’s.
Mill Lane, in Bracknell, was part of this old Roman Road.
The Priory, at the junction of Priory Lane, was a “Holiday Priory/Kitchen Garden”, for the Home Benedictine Priory, near the Tyburn in London. This was the place where Londoners were hung!
There is now a French Priory, near to the old London Tyburn site, which has a replica gallows in the Chapel – prayers are still said for the “Departed”.
The old “Georgian Butchers” to the rear of “The Three Legged Cross” was situated there as the Drovers had to pass over the nearby “Battle” Bridge – any lame animals were sold to the Butcher.
The pond opposite the Priory, in Old Priory Lane was a Drovers Pond (for the cattle to drink from).
The large field next to this Pond was called “Half-Penny Lea” – ½ an old penny, paid for every single cattle “overnighting” there.
The Drovers used to “bed down”, on straw, in the building just behind the nearby old “Horseshoes” Pub (now a house, which has a “Priest Hole” in it).
Robin Seward thinks these twin oaks near to Quelm Lane on the Northern Distributor Road are most unusual. Two oaks were normally planted together and then the weaker one was removed. In this case both oaks were allowed to grow. He would like to make a feature of these in some way.
Gill Cheetham, the Treasurer of our Society and Chair and Programme Secretary of the Bracknell Forest Natural History Society, informs us that the dead trees have been left for owls to nest in.
Click here for information on The Priory Field, Warfield.
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