Geography
The town covers areas previously in the parishes of Easthampstead, Warfield, Binfield and Winkfield. The town's centre lies just north of the railway station with completely pedestrianized and much undercover shopping around Princess Square, Charles Square and the Broadway. There are 'out-of-town' shops, a multiscreen cinema and ten pin bowling complex at the Peel Centre. Just to the west are the Western and Southern industrial estates, either side of the railway line. There are many residential suburbs (see settlement table below) of varying dates, the oldest being Priestwood and, of course, Easthampstead village.
The former RAF Staff College buildings in Harmans Water, now closed, was part of the Joint Services Command and Staff College. This site is now, as of 2008, being redeveloped for housing by Wimpey, with an estimated 730 houses on the college's former site. The south-western corner of the town remains rural around Easthampstead Park and the wooded Yew Tree Corner. However, a new housing development called Jennett's Park is currently being built (from 2007) at Peacock Farm and on part of what was historically the grounds of Easthampstead Park. A considerable green area has been lost to houses. However, as of 2010, a new country park adjacent to the development is currently being created. There are large ponds at Farley Wood and the Easthampstead Mill Pond between Great Hollands and Wildridings, and two lakes at South Hill Park. The Bull Brook emerges above ground just within the bounds of the suburb of Bullbrook.
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Famous quotes containing the word geography:
“Where the heart is, there the muses, there the gods sojourn, and not in any geography of fame. Massachusetts, Connecticut River, and Boston Bay, you think paltry places, and the ear loves names of foreign and classic topography. But here we are; and, if we tarry a little, we may come to learn that here is best. See to it, only, that thyself is here;—and art and nature, hope and fate, friends, angels, and the Supreme Being, shall not absent from the chamber where thou sittest.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
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—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)