It returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, elected by the first past the post voting system.

This safe Conservative seat was represented for its entire existence by Andrew MacKay.

It also included those parts of the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead which had formerly made up the Rural District of Windsor (transferred from Windsor and Maidenhead), and those parishes in the former Rural District of Eton in Buckinghamshire which had been transferred to Berkshire by the Local Government Act 1972 (previously part of Beaconsfield).

Its main settlement was Bracknell, and it also included Ascot, Sunningdale, Sunninghill, Datchet, Crowthorne, Sandhurst, and Old Windsor.

The seat was abolished for the 1997 general election with the majority being absorbed into the new constituency of Bracknell.