The parish includes the hamlets of Horpit (a short distance north of Wanborough) and Foxhill, 1.5 miles (2.4 km) to the southeast.

There was a Roman settlement, Durocornovium, slightly northwest of the current village, at a road junction mentioned in the Antonine Itinerary.

[4] The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that a battle was fought in 592 AD between Ceawlin, King of Wessex and the Britons, at a place called Woddesbeorge or Wodnesbeorge, ("Woden's borough").

The antiquarian and historian W. H. Duignan stated in 1902: "Now it is impossible it can be Wanborough [...] 'Wen' [in Wenbeorg], in the ninth century, could not represent an original Woden.

It was also the home of James "Jimmy" White (1877 – 1927), a financier, property developer, racehorse owner and speculator who committed suicide at the house by taking Prussic acid.