Swinley Forest

In the 18th century Daniel Defoe - writing in the fashion of the time of regarding uncultivated land as wild and forbidding - described Bagshot Heath as "a vast tract of land [...] which is not only poor, but even quite steril [sic], given up to barrenness, horrid and frightful to look on [...] much of it is a sandy desert [...] This sand indeed is checked by the heath, or heather, which grows in it [...] but the ground is otherwise so poor and barren that the product of it feeds no creatures, but some very small sheep, who feed chiefly on the said heather [...] nor are there any villages, worth mentioning, and but few houses or people for many miles far and wide".

These defensive earth fortifications were built here not as working defences but as training grounds to carry out military exercises in the buildup to the Napoleonic Wars.

At Gormoor on the Nine Mile Ride, on the northern edge of Crowthorne Woods, is The Look Out Discovery Centre, operated by Bracknell Forest Borough Council.

Caesar's Camp appears to have fallen under the rule of Cunobelin, king of the Catuvellauni tribe in the first century AD from a coin discovered in the interior.

Swinley Park and Brick Pits is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and has protected areas for the birds that live there.

As well as the extensive commercial conifer plantations and mixed woodland the nationally rare lowland heath present means Swinley Forest forms part of the Thames Basin Heaths,[3] a designated Special Protection Area (SPA), due to the rare ground nesting birds including wood lark, Dartford warbler and European nightjar which nest in open parts of the forest.