[3] Wocca was apparently a Saxon chieftain who may also have owned lands at Wokefield in Berkshire and Woking in Surrey.

[3] In Victorian times, the name became corrupted to Oakingham,[3] and consequently the acorn with oak leaves is the town's heraldic charge, granted in the 19th century.

Geologically, Wokingham sits at the northern end of the Bagshot Formation, overlying London clay, suggesting a prehistorical origin as a marine estuary.

In 1661 George Staverton left a bequest in his will giving two bulls to be tethered in the Market Place and baited by dogs on St. Thomas' Day (21 December) each year.

[3] The bulls were paraded around the town a day or two before the event and then locked in the yard of the original Rose Inn which was situated on the site of the present-day Superdrug store.

It was named after an infamous band of ruffians, known as the 'Wokingham Blacks', who terrorised the local area until 29 of them were arrested after fighting a pitched battle with Grenadier Guards in Bracknell.

[11] Wokingham became a chapelry in the Middle Ages; its church of All Saints was built in the 14th century, probably on the site of a 12th-century chapel.

Its date of becoming a borough is unknown, but it may have followed the grant of rights to hold a market at Wokingham to the Bishop of Salisbury (as lord of the manor of Sonning) in 1219.

[13] The Wokingham North township covered the area north-east of the town centre, including All Saints' Church and the Ashridge and Dowlesgreen areas; that township was a detached part of Wiltshire until it was transferred to Berkshire under the Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844.

It sits between the larger towns of Reading and Bracknell and was originally in a band of agricultural land on the western edge of Windsor Forest.

These include Woosehill to the west, Emmbrook to the northwest, Dowlesgreen, Norreys, Keephatch and Bean Oak to the east, and to the south Wescott and Eastheath.

In 2010, the council set up WEL (Wokingham Enterprise Limited) to manage a £100m regeneration project to redevelop the town centre with new retail, leisure and residential facilities, parking, roads and open spaces.

[citation needed] As of 2015, the redevelopment of the railway station and surrounding area is complete, and large scale housing construction is underway to the north-east and south-east of the town.

[22] Most local bus services are provided by Thames Valley Buses, but the services from Wokingham to Reading and Bracknell are operated by Reading Buses, after First Berkshire & The Thames Valley closed their Bracknell depot in the summer of 2015.

There is also a football bus run on Reading FC match days by Stagecoach South to the Madejski Stadium.

She was well known to local Binfield man, Alexander Pope, who, during a storm, found himself stranded at the inn with his friends, Gay, Swift and Arbuthnot.

The character of Tom the chimney sweep in Charles Kingsley's classic childhood story The Water Babies was based on the life and times of a Wokingham boy called James Seaward, who was a boy sweep in Victorian times.

In his later years, Seaward swept the chimneys at Charles Kingsley's home at the Rectory in Eversley, Hampshire.

[32] Scenes for ITV series Primeval were filmed at Wokingham's Red Lion pub.