Map - Colnbrook

Colnbrook is a village in the Slough district in Berkshire, England. It lies within the historic boundaries of Buckinghamshire, and straddles two distributaries of the Colne, the Colne Brook and Wraysbury River. These two streams have their confluence just to the southeast of the village. Colnbrook is centred 3 mi southeast of Slough town centre, 3.5 mi east of Windsor, and 19 mi west of central London.

Colnbrook forms the greater part of the civil parish of Colnbrook with Poyle (see also Poyle). Junctions of the M4 and M25 are near the village. To the east is Longford, London, and Bedfont and Stanwell which abut the south of London Heathrow Airport.

Colnbrook with Poyle is a suburban parish with significant industrial units, logistical premises and open land. The parish was created on 1 April 1995 as an amalgamation of Colnbrook from Iver to the north and the smaller Poyle from an unparished area of Stanwell to the south-east. At the 2011 census the whole civil parish had a population of 6,157 living in 2,533 homes.

Mentioned in William the Conqueror's Domesday Book, Colnbrook is on the Colne Brook, a tributary of the River Colne, hence Colnbrook. Coaching inns were the village's main industry. In 1106 the first one was founded by Milo Crispin, named the Hospice (subsequently the 'Ostrich', probably by way of corruption of the original name), the third oldest in England. By 1577 Colnbrook had no fewer than ten coaching inns. Colnbrook's High Street was on the main London to Bath road and turn off point for Windsor and was used as a resting point for travellers.

One 14th-century landlord, Jarman of the Ostrich Inn, installed a large trap door under the bed in the best bedroom located immediately above the inn's kitchen. The bed was fixed to the trap door and the mattress securely attached to the bedstead, so that when two retaining iron pins were removed from below in the small hours of the morning, the sleeping guest was neatly decanted into a boiling cauldron. In this way more than 60 of his richer guests were murdered silently and with no bloodshed. Their bodies were then disposed of in the River Colne. The murder of a wealthy clothier, Olde Cole or Thomas of Reading, proved to be Jarman's undoing in that he failed to get rid of Cole's horse, leading to his confessing. Jarman and his wife were hanged for robbery and murder. The inn is reportedly haunted and has been subject to investigations by the Sussex Paranormal Research Group and Most Haunted. On an episode of "Ghosthunters International" that aired on 21 July 2010, it is mentioned that the Jarman murders at the Ostrich Inn were the inspiration for the story of "Sweeney Todd."

Colnbrook is also the place where Richard Cox (a retired brewer), in 1825, first grafted the Cox's Orange Pippin apple at his orchard named The Lawns.

A traditional coaching history has led to no fewer than four inns or public houses remaining, three in Colnbrook, one in Poyle.