- published: 01 May 2011
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Coordinates: 51°25′55″N 0°47′31″W / 51.432°N 0.792°W / 51.432; -0.792
Binfield is a village and civil parish in the Bracknell Forest borough of Berkshire, England. According to the 2001 census it has a population of 7,475. The village is located on the northwestern fringe of the Bracknell urban area, and lies less than 4 miles (6.4 km) east of Wokingham and 8 miles (13 km) south east of Reading.
The name is derived from the Old English beonet + feld and means "open land where bent grass grows". The surrounding forest was cleared after the Enclosure Act of 1813 when Forestal Rights were abolished and people bought parcels of land for agriculture; it was at this point that villages like Binfield expanded, when there was work for farm labourers. The local hundred of Beynhurst has a similar derivation. Billingbear is the north-western portion of Binfield parish, although Billingbear Park, near Shurlock Row, is over the border, in the parish of Waltham St Lawrence.
The Stag and Hounds was reportedly used as a hunting lodge by Henry VIII and Elizabeth I and an elm tree outside it (the stump of which was finally removed in 2004 - it was ravaged by Dutch Elm Disease in the 70s) was said to mark the centre of Windsor Forest. John Constable spent his honeymoon at the Rectory in 1816 and sketched 'All Saints Church' twice. It is also said to have been a refuge for a number of Parliamentary soldiers during the Civil War. The lodge became a coaching inn in 1727. The 18th century travel writer, William Cobbett, once stayed there and wrote that it was "a very nice country inn". He called nearby Bracknell a "bleak and desolate" place.