Bracknell
Bracknell | ||
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The pub "The Red Lion" and the former 3M building | ||
Coordinates | 51 ° 25 ′ N , 0 ° 45 ′ W | |
OS National Grid | SU870693 | |
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Residents | 50,131 (as of 2001) | |
administration | ||
Post town | BRACKNELL | |
ZIP code section | RG12, RG42 | |
prefix | 01344 | |
Part of the country | England | |
region | South East England | |
Shire county | Berkshire | |
Ceremonial county | Berkshire | |
District | Bracknell Forest | |
Website: Bracknell Town Council | ||
Bracknell is an English town of about 55,000 in the Unitary Authority of Bracknell Forest , Berkshire . The community is approximately 60 km southwest of London on the M4 motorway and the South West Trains line between London Waterloo and Reading . Bracknell is around 30 minutes' drive from London Heathrow Airport. The Bull Brook flows north of the city.
history
Bracknell is a New Town (planned town), a city founded after the Second World War to make room for business settlements. Today a large number of international corporations have offices in Bracknell. Mainly companies from the IT and electrical engineering can be found here, for example Siemens , Honeywell , Fujitsu , Hewlett-Packard , 3M or Novell . The rental car company AVIS has its European headquarters here. The BMW Group operates the national subsidiary BMW (GB) Ltd. here, which looks after Great Britain and Ireland, a warehouse and a training center. Even Rolls-Royce Motor Cars has its headquarters here. In Bracknell is also the headquarters of the British supermarket chain Waitrose .
The cityscape is characterized by many terraced houses and a large number of roundabouts. The city center is a concrete landscape typical of the 1960s and 1970s, consisting of a shopping center and two shopping streets. The few pre-war buildings are mostly old country houses in which there are pubs and which are now framed by prefabricated buildings . The idea of the “ car-friendly city ”, which was very popular in the 1960s, was thanks to Bracknell for a large number of pedestrian tunnels that connect the city center or commercial areas with the residential areas. Crossing the streets was not included in this concept, so zebra crossings and pedestrian traffic lights are a rare sight in the cityscape.
To the east, Bracknell borders the town of Ascot, famous for its racecourse . To the south of Bracknell belongs an extensive forest area, the Bracknell Forest . During excavations, the remains of an approximately 2600 year old settlement from the Iron Age were found ( Caesar's Camp ). Broadmoor Hospital , a forensic clinic and one of the most famous high-security prisons in England , is located on the southern city limits, but already in the area of the Crowthorn parish .
Bracknell got "unknown celebrity" from the first Harry Potter film adaptation. The exterior shots of the Dursley's house were filmed in Martins Heron , a part of Bracknell.
Town twinning
Bracknell's German twin town has been Opladen since 1973 and Leverkusen since it was incorporated in 1975 .
sons and daughters of the town
- Hugh Welchman (* 1975), film producer
- Camilla Luddington (born 1983), actress
- Mark Philo (1984-2006), football player
Web links
- Bracknell Town Council - City Council website
- Bracknell Forest Borough Unitary Authority (English)
- detailed city history (English)
- Welcome to Bracknell (English)