"Finchampstead - Berkshire" a Finchampstead Travel Page by easyoar

Over the years Finchampstead seems to have got bigger and bigger, and these days it is hard to identify exactly where it starts and where it finishes. Around 25 years ago Finchampstead was little more than "the village", which was little more than the row of houses by the playing fields and playground, and around to Finchampstead church which is on top of the hill overlooking the playing fields, and possibly as far as Gorse Ride. Then around 20 years ago a largish estate of houses got built outside of this area, and this became North Finchampstead. These days North Finchampstead seems to have stretched all the way to the Queensmere Roundabout on the A321 and Nine Mile Ride Roads, although some of this area is Finchampstead Wokingham as the distinction between the two towns becomes vaguer. This latter area is also know as Wokingham Without (a historical name), but has more recently been interpreted as being the part of Wokingham without any shops, playgrounds or amenities of any sort - even a local pub got turned into apartments around 2002-2003.

A fairly recent phenomena is the emergence of the Finchampstead Large Cat - on the internet it is also known as the Wokingham Big Cat, see:
http://www.getwokingham.co.uk/story.asp?intid=2070

However never having seen any evidence of this despite knowing the local woodland quite well, I will stay neutral as to the existence of this cat!

Sites well worth seeing in the area (see my tips for more details) are The Fichampstead Ridges, St James' Church, Wellingtonia Avenue with the Californian Redwood Giants, Simons Wood and Heath Lake and Finchampstead Playing Fields, where you can watch a game of cricket on a summer evening.