Binfield, Berkshire

Description
Binfield, a small village and a parish in Berks. The village stands in Windsor Forest, 2 1/2 miles N of Bracknell station on the L. & S.W.R., and 8 1/2 NE of Wokingham, and has a post, money order, and telegraph office under Bracknell. The parish comprises 3489 acres; population, 1740. The Manor House, Binfield Park, Forest Lodge, Pope's Wood (now Arthurstone), The Grove, and Binfield Court are chief residences, and there are several other fine villas and mansions in this parish. Binfield was the early home of Pope, who speaks of his father's house here as- My paternal cell, A little house, with trees a-row, And, like its master, very low.
Here Pope wrote great part of his early poems, and in a clump of beech trees, not far distant from the house, and still called Pope's Wood, stood a tree, now destroyed, bearing the inscription by Lord Lyttleton, Here Pope sung. The Roman road, called the Devil's Highway,passed near the village, and an entrenchment there bears the name of Caesar's camp. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Oxford; commuted value, £805 with residence, in the gift of the Lord Chancellor. The church is a building of stone in the Perpendicular style. It is difficult to say when it was built; it was mentioned in the Taxatio of Pope Nicholas IV. in 1291. Norman remains were found during restoration. It has a picturesque square tower, was restored and enlarged in 1848, and further enlarged in 1859. St Mark's chapel-of-ease, a building of red brick, was erected in 1867, and is in the Early English style. There is also an undenominational chapel, built in 1875, and a working men's club, erected in 1885.