hill and has an old Roman earthwork around it. It was probably the site of a pagan temple. The Roman road between London and Silchester, called the "Devil's Highway", ran through the middle of the parish. A Roman milestone survives at Banisters. Finchampstead's Old English toponym derives from the large variety of finches that still populate the area. It is referred to by the younger generation as 'Finch'. St. Oswald apparently visited the village in the 7th century and named the local holy well, which is recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to have flowed with blood in times of National crisis. Finchampstead is a richly wooded area on the western edge of old Windsor Forest and once the centre of one of its divisional "walkes" and bailiwicks. It was the hunting place of Royalty and an old tale tells how King Henry VII brought his son, Prince Arthur, out onto the Ridges to see his bride, Catherine of Aragon, for the first time. His other son, Henry VIII, is said to have wooed two sisters at East Court Manor until one committed suicide in a fit of jealousy. There are three manor houses. East Court was next to the church, but has been replaced by a Victorian building and the name has been transferred to another house in the village. West Court is a 17th and 19th century house at Finchampstead Lea. Banisters, on the lower slopes of Fleet Hill, is a brick Restoration house of 1683. Finchampstead's Wellingtonia Avenue was planted with one hundred giant sequoia trees, as a monument to the 1st Duke of Wellington in the 1860s. Wellington College school nearby was also erected in his memory. Notable people Commissioner Catherine Bramwell-Booth CBE OF, (Granddaughter of the Salvation Army Founders William Booth and Catherine Booth 'Mother of the Salvation Army'), lived in Finchampstead with two of her sisters Lieut. Col. Olive Booth and Major Dora (Dorothy) Booth. The three are buried with their sister Colonel Mary Bramwell Booth CBE and alongside their brother Bramwell Bernard Booth and his wife Jane in the churchyard of St James'. Catherine died aged 104, Olive 98 and Dora 95. Christine Keeler lived on the Nine Mile Ride. Brigadier General Ernest Macnaghten, former chairman of the Shanghai Municipal Council retired to Haygates in Finchampstead. He died there in 1948. Singer-songwriter, Laura Marling, grew up and attended primary school in Finchampstead. Lieutenant Colonel