It lies to the Southwest of Burghfield Bridge The name Pingewood is thought to derive from the Common Brittonic words corresponding to modern Welsh penn ("head, peak, tip or end") and coed ("wood").

When Old English became the dominant language in the area, around the fifth century, Old English-speakers did not understand the meaning and added their own descriptive word wood on the end.

The principal survey of Celtic place-names in England, by Richard Coates and Andrew Breeze, marks this interpretation as uncertain, however.

There were 13 cottages, with a Church school at the southern end of the road, a large village green with a Coronation seat, and a smallholding called Moore's Farm.

To the south, and running west to east, flows The Teg, which joins Burghfield Brook on the south-eastern boundary of the hamlet.

Legend has it that, sometime in the 19th century, an unmarried serving girl found that she was pregnant and committed suicide by throwing herself from one of the windows.