White Waltham

In 1949 the government looked at White Waltham, pictured a new town for bombed-out Londoners, then handed the job to Bracknell because the soil was too good and there was no railway. The village has been dining out on that lucky escape ever since, with big houses, light aircraft droning over from the airfield and the M4 allowed to cross on the strict understanding that it never stops. Thomas Hearne, the local boy who made it to the Bodleian, once complained in print about the insolence of the parishioners of Bray for straying over the parish boundary, and nobody here has seen much reason to soften the tone since.