Cox Green is a settlement in Berkshire, England, near Maidenhead, Windsor and Reading.
The earliest known settlement in Cox Green was a villa, built in several phases during the Roman occupation but probably owned by local Celtic families. The surrounding land would have been cleared and farmed, and there is evidence of metalworking nearby.
What happened to the land after the villa fell out of use is not clear, but by the 1660s there was a village called Cox Green. Like many villages in this part of the country, it did not conform to the typical view of an English village with its own church. Instead, it was one of a number of small settlements that were part of a larger parish – in this case Bray.
Bray is actually the name of both a parish and a hundred in the county of Berkshire. Although it has subsequently been subdivided into further parishes, it originally extended from the southern part of Maidenhead along the Thames and the Bath Road. Other villages included Holyport, Fifield, Stud Green and Woolley Green.
In 1861, a local inhabitant, Charles Kerry, wrote The History and Antiquities of the Hundred of Bray. Like many nineteenth century historians, he was particularly interested in the monuments and inscriptions in the parish church, in the manors (including Ockwells, Shoppenhangers, Lowbrook) and large landowners (some of whose pedigrees he included). However, the parish registers, census returns and tithe applotment records provide the names of many of the ordinary inhabitants of the area.
Over the course of the nineteenth century, Cox Green gradually expanded. Its new inhabitants were less likely to work as agricultural labourers – instead, they included builders, railway workers and tradesmen. Even so, the village was still surrounded by farmland and supported two market gardens. By the early twentieth century, it started to become a desirable residence for professionals, and several large detached houses were built amongst the labourers’ cottages.
Nowadays, it is more like a suburb of Maidenhead, dissected by the railway and the A404(M) link road. But on its outskirts there are still parts of the manors, and in its heart some of the original cottages survive – and the layout of the roads follows the boundaries of the fields laid out during the Tithe Commutation, the Enclosures and even earlier.
As active members of the Cox Green Local History Group, we have researched the history of the village from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries as well as producing a guide to local walks. Other members of the group have researched the Roman Villa, the local Flower Show, the story of the Vanwall (which was produced locally and won the Grand Prix in 1957), life and people in the 1920s and 30s, the Second World War in Cox Green and at White Waltham airfield, and the exile of Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands at nearby Stubbings. We designed and produced all the booklets for the group, which are available for sale through the group (see the Links page). We have also produced display material for the group’s stand at local exhibitions.
Note: There is an index of census strays for the Cox Green area in the Genealogy section of our site.