Wokingham

Wokingham baited bulls in the Market Place every December for the best part of two centuries and now saves its passion for arguing about the traffic, which counts as civic progress. The brickworks gave way to software, and the farmland gave way to cul-de-sacs for the people who write it. Reading has the jobs and Bracknell has the bigger shops, while Wokingham has the market square and the house prices of a town that knows it. The Victorians renamed it Oakingham by mistake, and the town kept the acorn and the aspiration.