In 1887 the population of the parish was 528. By 1896, the population had grown to 585. The population fluctuated steadily around 550 until the 1950s and 1960s, when a population explosion resulted in the 1961 UK census reporting 2,186 residents in the parish. This coincides with the opening of the Atomic Weapons Establishment in the early 1950s, and the majority of this figure counts residents in the parts of Tadley within the parish of Aldermaston—between 1901 and 1961, 368 houses were built in the parish.