Blackwater was once a tithing of Yately until 1857 when a church was constructed and this led to the village becoming part of the new parish of Hawley.

People have been present in the Blackwater Valley ever since prehistory and it is probable that the valley was once a wetland.

There has been evidence found of human occupation here in the form of Neolithic arrowheads found at Tongham and at Yately a Bronze Age cemetery Two Iron Age hill forts are also in the valley and are prominent features of the heath lands both known as Caesar's Camps and they are on Aldershot Common and Nine Mile Ride at Bracknell. The landscape may not have changed much over the years. And in 1724 but Daniel Defoe describes it as ”Much of it is sandy desert where winds raise the sands…The ground is otherwise so poor and barren, that the product of it feeds no creatures but some very poor sheep, and but few of these, nor are there any villages worth remembering and but few houses or people for many miles far & wide. This desert lies extended so much that some say there is not less than a hundred thousand acres or this barren land… reaching out every way in the three counties of Surrey, Hampshire & Berkshire.”

Once upon a time there were two inns here and one of the coaching inns had its own brewery. With the widespread use of coaches in the area, in  1839 it was recorded that over 60 coaches a day would pass through,  it was obvious this would attract highway men and footpads.

There was a two day cattle fair held every November from the 13th century up to just after World War One and this was held on the land by the crossroads to the south of Blackwater. It is recorded in Old Moore's Almanac that this was the largest fair of its kind  in the south. Hundreds of cows horses and other animals were brought here for sale and it is said that Ponies from the New Forest were also sold here.

The local alehouses and Inns must have done well out of this extra trade and at the end of each day there was a pleasure fair and stalls were set up selling various wares, and all along Blackwater Street (A30) there were sideshows and travelling musicians entertained the people wandering around.

The air in the area had a scent of pine about it which was said to be healthy and large houses were build in the area with lodges built for the employees of the estates.

It was in 1849 that the railway came to Blackwater and this meant new accommodation had to be built for the navvies employed on its construction.

Hawley House is said to be the oldest house in the vicinity and it is also known as Hawley Park, and during the Middle Ages was used as a hunting lodge. Then it was made bigger in the 18th century and a stable block with a clock added in 1743, the founder member of the notorious Hell Fire Club, Sir Francis Dashwood used the stables on many an occasion.

The author Wilkie Colins is said to have stayed at Frogmore Park in 1860 and it was here that inspired him to write The White Lady.

Another well know visitor to the village was Admiral Sir Charles Denniston Burney who designed airships and was also the inventor of the paravane which was a knife-bearing torpedo-like device for cutting mines adrift.

The development of new roads and new houses came after WWII and the requirement fot the materials with which to build them, thus many of the fields in the Blackwater Valley have been extracted for gravel and sand. And since the 1950s gravel extraction has been continuously taking place in the floor of the Valley and has resulted in a great many lakes being formed some of which have been made into water sports facilities.