By the 19th century, the two Bracknells had combined into a single market town, which was an important centre of local industry, most notably for its brick trade.

Today, the town is a busy commercial centre within the so-called Silicon Thames Valley and the UK headquarters for several technology companies.

To the east, the urban area joins up with Ascot to form a continuous conurbation that extends to Central London.

The name Bracknell is first recorded in a Winkfield Boundary Charter of AD 942 as Braccan heal, and may mean "Nook of land belonging to a man called Bracca", from the Old English Braccan (genitive singular of a personal name) + heal, healh (a corner, nook or secret place).

Easthampstead Park was a favoured royal hunting lodge in Windsor Forest and Catherine of Aragon was banished there until her divorce was finalised.

[citation needed] Other surviving old pubs are the Red Lion and the Bull, both timber-framed and dating from before the 18th century.

There has been a church there since Saxon times, although the present building dates from the mid 19th century, except for the lower portions of the Tudor tower.

The site was originally a small market town in the civil parish of Warfield in the Easthampstead Rural District.

The location was preferred to White Waltham, which was also considered, because the Bracknell site avoided encroaching on good quality agricultural land.

The residential streets are, however, named in alphabetical order in Great Hollands and Wildridings, with As to Ds, such as Donnybrook, in Hanworth, Js, such as 'Jameston', 'Juniper' and 'Jevington' in Birch Hill.

The regeneration will provide brand new services, a completely redeveloped town centre, 1,000 new homes and new police and bus stations.

Demolition of the new town's old retro-futuristic, Brutalist central area then began in September 2013, and was completed in December of the same year.

[12] The Lexicon opened on 7 September 2017, comprising 600,000 sq ft (56,000 m2) of new retail space, a 12-screen cinema which includes a 4DX screen, restaurants and cafes, completely new paving and public realm[clarification needed] and 1300 parking spaces as well as improved access by public transport, the council having substantially refurbished the bus station in 2015.

[15] Bracknell is the first post-war New Town centre to have been substantially regenerated and represents a significant exemplar development.

Former significant sites included Racal Communications in Western and London Road, Clifford's Dairy in Downshire Way and British Aerospace (originally Sperry Gyroscope) now occupied by Arlington Square, a 22-acre (8.9-hectare) business park[22] of which the first stage was completed in 1995.

The Thomas Lawrence brickworks on the north side of the town was famous for 'red rubber' bricks to be found in the Royal Albert Hall and Westminster Cathedral, and in restoration work at 10 Downing Street and Hampton Court Palace.

The building was demolished and has been replaced with a large block of flats[23] The town was also the home of Racal and Ferranti Computer Systems Ltd.

The building is now leased to the company and has reopened as a hotel [24] Bracknell was made a civil parish in its own right in 1955.

Bracknell Forest Borough Council's offices are at Time Square in Market Street.

There are many residential suburbs (see settlement table below) of varying dates, the oldest being Priestwood and, of course, Easthampstead village.

[26] South Hill Park has been home to a number of major music festivals over the years:[27] Bracknell has been used in the filming of many TV shows and films, such as Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Martins Heron) and Time Bandits (Birch Hill).

The wages snatch scene in Villain (1971), a gangster film with Richard Burton, was filmed in Ellesfield Avenue on the Southern Industrial Estate outside the former Clark Eaton glass factory,[29] with the ICL tower block visible in the background; after the robbery the gang make their getaway along Peacock Lane nearby and hijack a car at the junction with the footpath from Tarmans Copse (now Osprey Avenue on the Jennett's Park estate).

[31] Artist Kerry Lemon was commissioned to create a number of site-specific artworks for the Lexicon town centre development.

Her work includes a series of 36 unique botanical paving slabs in granite and brass designed to create a nature trail through the town centre; 15 gobo lights projecting moth drawings in light onto the pavements below; 5 cast jesmonite birch leaf benches with hand sculpted solid brass insects and painted brass leaf veins.

Bracknell is a commuter centre with its residents travelling in both directions (westwards to Reading and eastwards to London Waterloo).

A proposed motorway link between the M3 and the M4 to be called the M31 would have passed to the west of the town centre, but only the section that is now the A329(M) and the A3290 was built.

Bus services go from Bracknell as far afield as Crowthorne, Camberley, Wokingham, Reading, Maidenhead, Windsor and Slough.

are members of the Southern Football League Premier Division South, and play their home matches at Bottom Meadow, Sandhurst.

The Silwood Park campus of Imperial College London is five miles (eight kilometres) east of Bracknell town centre.