Along with the adjoining village of Spencers Wood to the south, it forms a part of the civil parish of Shinfield.

In the 1980s, the A33 Swallowfield Bypass severed roads to the Estate of Mereoak park lying in the Reading direction.

Three Mile Cross is best known as the home of the famous 19th-century author, Mary Russell Mitford who wrote a five-volume book of literary sketches entitled Our Village, which is a series of stories and essays largely about the setting and people of Three Mile Cross.

[1] During the 13th century, the college of St Nicholas de Vaux in Salisbury was Lord of the Manor of Hartley Dummer.

Through various sales and transfers, other major landowners declaring ownership of the area in their title deeds include the Norreyses of Rycote, the Earls of Abingdon, the Jameses of Denford and the Benyons of Englefield.