The community was named after Hugh Bell, who owned a tavern on the site of the present day Bells Corners Public School from 1834 to 1863. Once a rural community with many dairy farms, Bells Corners is now a residential, commercial and industrial island surrounded by greenbelt, woods and farmland. For a time Bells Corners was a hi-tech area and home to such Canadian technology icons as Computing Devices Canada, the Ottawa-based defense electronics company (bought by General Dynamics), which blazed the trail for later defense technology firms in what would become known as Silicon Valley North in neighbouring Kanata. Many of the houses in Bells Corners are in a neighbourhood called Lynwood Village , built in the late fifties and early sixties. It is one of the first examples of tract housing in Ottawa. The first area to be developed was Stinson Avenue in 1950. This was followed by Arbeatha Park in, and then Lynwood Village proper. The last area of Lynwood to be developed was the area bounded by Richmond, Robertson, and Moodie Drive in 1966.
To the west of Lynwood Village is Westcliffe Estates, a growing community.