Binfield

The name Binfield derived from the Old English beonet + feld and means "open land where bent-grass grows". The surrounding forest was cleared after the Windsor Forest Act 1813 (53 Geo. 3. c. 158) 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 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 2003) was said to mark the centre of Windsor Forest. Rumley Bowes, elder brother of John Bowes, 1st Baron Bowes, lived here in the later eighteenth century…