The area was made up of a few
manor houses, many of which evolved into
country houses, for example Waltham Place, with its organic farm and gardens which are open to the public. The
Church of England parish church of
St Mary dates from
Norman times, but has many fourteenth-century and
Victorian features. Frequent disputes as to the boundary between White Waltham and
Bray occurred at intervals since 1286 and
Thomas Hearne, historian, gives an account of the
beating of the bounds in his own life-time, mentioning all the place-names and commenting on 'the insolence of the parishioners of Bray in transgressing their bounds.'
Sir Constantine Henry Phipps,
Lord Chancellor of Ireland, was buried at
St. Mary in 1723.
Thomas Hearne was born at Littlefield Green in 1678. Acquiring the patronage of the local
lord of the manor,
Francis Cherry, he rose to become assistant-keeper of the
Bodleian Library in
Oxford and the author of many important works. White Waltham School was established in 1828 and has been developed and expanded since, providing primary education for pupils between the ages of 5 and 11 and has legal academy status. The area had approximately half of the population in the late
Victorian period but was overall significantly poorer in terms of real property. Today White Waltham has more than five times as many homes with 1,214. The area's agriculture was noted as of high fertility justifying its protection after World War II. After
World War II the south of White Waltham was proposed as land for
Berkshire's
new town to rehouse Londoners made homeless by
The Blitz. However, central and local government agreed in 1949 to use the alternative of
Bracknell, as the White Waltham site would have encroached on good quality agricultural land, and was not on a railway. ==Carters Steam Fair==