Britwell is a residential

housing estate A housing estate (or sometimes housing complex or housing development) is a group of homes and other buildings built together as a single development. The exact form may vary from country to country. Popular throughout the United States a ...

and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

in the north west of

Slough Slough () is a town and unparished area in the unitary authority of the same name in Berkshire, England, bordering west London. It lies in the Thames Valley, west of central London and north-east of Reading, at the intersection of the M4 ...

Berkshire Berkshire ( ; in the 17th century sometimes spelt phonetically as Barkeshire; abbreviated Berks.) is a historic county in South East England. One of the home counties, Berkshire was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II as the Royal County of Berk ...

South East England South East England is one of the nine official regions of England at the ITL 1 statistical regions of England, first level of International Territorial Level, ITL for Statistics, statistical purposes. It consists of the counties of england, ...

. It is about west of Charing Cross, the centremost point of

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

. The name Britwell derives from the old English ''beorhtan wiellan'' meaning 'bright, clear well'.

History

The place now known as the Britwell Estate was originally farm land. Modern-day Britwell, which has the well-defined geographic boundaries of Farnham Lane (in the north), Lower Britwell Road and Haymill Road (to the west), Whittaker Road and Northborough Road (south) and Long Readings Lane (east), was created as a large

overspill In nonstandard analysis, a branch of mathematics, overspill (referred to as ''overflow'' by Goldblatt (1998, p. 129)) is a widely used proof technique. It is based on the fact that the set of standard natural numbers N is not an internal su ...

housing estate for bombed-out Londoners at the end of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. Britwell was one of a number of

London County Council London County Council (LCC) was the principal local government body for the County of London throughout its existence from 1889 to 1965, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today kno ...

estates built at the time, with other estates in places including

Langley Langley may refer to: People * Langley (surname), a common English surname, including a list of notable people with the name * Dawn Langley Simmons (1922–2000), English author and biographer * Elizabeth Langley (born 1933), Canadian perfor ...

and

Swindon Swindon () is a town and unitary authority with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in Wiltshire, England. As of the 2021 Census, the population of Swindon was 201,669, making it the largest town in the county. The Swindon un ...

. The first of 11,000 tenants arrived in August 1956 and were delighted with the "roomy and modern" houses, complete with large swivel windows – "a boon to housewives". There was a dearth of amenities at first, but after the founding of the community association in 1959, the estate finally got a bus service into Slough, and a community centre in 1966. When the Britwell Estate was created, its postal address was

Farnham Royal Farnham Royal is a village and civil parish within Buckinghamshire, England. It is in the south of the county, immediately north of Slough (with which it is contiguous), and around 22 miles west of Charing Cross, Central London. Within the parish ...

, near Slough. The local authority at the time was

Eton Rural District Council Eton Rural District was a rural district in the administrative county of Buckinghamshire, England, covering an area in the south-east of the county. It was named after but did not contain Eton, which was an urban district. History The distr ...

in the county of

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-ea ...

. In 1965, the London County Council was one of a number of authorities replaced by the

Greater London Council The Greater London Council (GLC) was the top-tier local government administrative body for Greater London from 1965 to 1986. It replaced the earlier London County Council (LCC) which had covered a much smaller area. The GLC was dissolved in 198 ...

(GLC). When the GLC was in turn abolished in 1986, the social housing on Britwell was transferred to Slough Borough Council. Mortgages issued by the GLC authority were transferred to the

Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames The Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames is a borough in southwest London. The main town is Kingston upon Thames and it includes Surbiton, Chessington, Malden Rushett, New Malden and Tolworth. It is the oldest of the four royal boroughs in Eng ...

Government

Following the

Local Government Act 1972 The Local Government Act 1972 (c. 70) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed local government in England and Wales on 1 April 1974. It was one of the most significant Acts of Parliament to be passed by the Heath Gov ...

, Britwell was transferred to Berkshire, to form part of the borough of Slough. A

was established at that point for the part of the estate that had previously lain in the Burnham civil parish. The current Parish Council had 13 parish councillors and covers approximately 60% of the Britwell Estate. The Britwell Electoral

ward Ward may refer to: Division or unit * Hospital ward, a hospital division, floor, or room set aside for a particular class or group of patients, for example the psychiatric ward * Prison ward, a division of a penal institution such as a pris ...

included the parish area and extends westwards to the Five Points crossroads in Burnham. It has three borough councillors. The southern part of Long Readings Lane and the south side of Cowper Road became part of the Britwell ward for the first time in 2004 following a Boundary Commission review. The Parish Council have provided premises for use as a Neighbourhood Police Office within their parish ground; this is well used by the local beat team, PCSOs and community wardens. In 2018 the parish, and neighbouring

Wexham Court Wexham is a civil parish in the county of Buckinghamshire in southern England. It is on the boundary of the unitary authority of Slough, its post town. Wexham Park Hospital is a large hospital on the parish border and Burnham Beeches, a fores ...

, were scheduled for abolition in April 2019, but after an appeal by the parish councils and a judicial review the order was quashed and the parishes remain unchanged.

Geography

Britwell has two Local nature reserves, the first is on the South Western border of the village called Haymill Valley, and the other is on the northern border called Cocksherd Wood.

In the media

Britwell's row of shops featured as a backdrop in the

dystopia A dystopia (from Ancient Greek δυσ- "bad, hard" and τόπος "place"; alternatively cacotopiaCacotopia (from κακός ''kakos'' "bad") was the term used by Jeremy Bentham in his 1818 Plan of Parliamentary Reform (Works, vol. 3, p. 493). ...

themed movie ''

V for Vendetta ''V for Vendetta'' is a British graphic novel written by Alan Moore and illustrated by David Lloyd (with additional art by Tony Weare). Initially published between 1982 and 1985 in black and white as an ongoing serial in the British antholog ...

''. Britwell has also featured in the ITV drama '' Torn''. The shops also represented 1970s

Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...

in the film '' Titanic Town'' starring

Julie Walters Dame Julia Mary Walters (born 22 February 1950), known professionally as Julie Walters, is an English actress. She is the recipient of four British Academy Television Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, two International Emmy Awards, a ...

External links

Britwell Parish Council

St George's Church

Lynch Hill School Primary Academy

References

{{Slough suburbs Suburbs of Slough Civil parishes in Berkshire