Cookham

Coordinates: 51°33′29″N 0°42′29″W / 51.558°N 0.708°W / 51.558; -0.708
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Cookham
United Kingdom Census 2011[1]
OS grid referenceSU895855
Civil parish
  • Cookham
Unitary authority
Ceremonial county
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townMaidenhead
Postcode districtSL6
Dialling code01628
PoliceThames Valley
FireRoyal Berkshire
AmbulanceSouth Central
UK Parliament
List of places
UK
England
Berkshire
51°33′29″N 0°42′29″W / 51.558°N 0.708°W / 51.558; -0.708

Cookham is a historic

2011 Census.[1] In 2011, The Daily Telegraph deemed Cookham Britain's second richest village.[2]

Toponymy

It is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Cocheham. The name may be from the Old English cōc + hām, meaning 'cook village', i.e. 'village noted for its cooks', although the first element may be derived from the Old English cōc(e) meaning 'hill'.[3]

Geography

The parish includes three settlements:

  • Cookham Village – the centre of the original village, with a high street that has changed little over the centuries
  • Cookham Dean – the most rural village in the parish
  • Cookham Rise – the middle area that grew up round the railway station

The ancient parish of Cookham covered all of Maidenhead north of the

Furze Platt and Pinkneys Green.[4] There were several manors: Cookham, Lullebrook, Elington, Pinkneys, Great Bradley, Bullocks, White Place and Cannon Court. The neighbouring communities are Maidenhead to the south, Bourne End to the north, Marlow and Bisham to the west and Taplow
to the east.

The River Thames flows past Cookham on its way between Marlow and Taplow. Several Thames islands belong to Cookham, such as Odney Island, Formosa Island and Sashes Island, which separates Cookham Lock from Hedsor Water. The Lulle Brook and the White Brook are tributaries of the Thames that flow through the parish. Much common land remains in the parish, such as Widbrook Common, Cookham Dean Common and Cock Marsh. Winter Hill affords views over the Thames Valley and Chiltern Hills. Cock Marsh is a site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) just to the north of the village.[5]

History

Bronze Age palstave axehead, found in Cookham and dated to c. 3500 – c. 1500 BCE[6]
A sestertius of the Roman Emperor Caracalla, found in Cookham and dated to c. 210 – c. 213[7]

The area has been inhabited for thousands of years. Several prehistoric

St. Albans to Silchester.[8] By the 8th century there was an Anglo-Saxon abbey in Cookham, under the patronage of the Kingdom of Mercia, and one of the later abbesses was Cynethryth, widow of Offa of Mercia. It became the centre of a power struggle between Mercia and Wessex, with the Thames forming a boundary between the two. In 2021 archaeological excavations by a team from the University of Reading discovered the site of the abbey, adjacent to Cookham's parish church, and items associated with it, while the following year additional excavations revealed extensive ancient infrastructure suggesting a larger settlement and trading centre.[9][10] Later, Alfred the Great made Sashes Island one of his burhs to help defend against Viking invaders. There was a royal palace here[11] where the Witan
met in 997.

Although the earliest stone church building may have existed from 750, the earliest identifiable part of the current

Holy Trinity parish church is the Lady Chapel, built in the late 12th century on the site of the cell of a female anchorite who lived next to the church and was paid a halfpenny a day by Henry II.[12]

In the

Dower House – marked the extent of their lands. In 1611 the estate at Cookham was the subject of the first ever country house poem, Emilia Lanier's "Description of Cookham", which pays tribute to her patroness, Margaret Clifford.[citation needed
]

Print of Fred Walker's (1840-1875), Our Village (Cookham), exhibited at the Water-colour Society's Exhibition, London, in 1873

The townspeople resisted many attempts to enclose parts of the common land, including those by the Rev. Thomas Whateley in 1799, Miss Isabella Fleming in 1869, who wanted to stop nude bathing at Odney, and the Odney Estates in 1928, which wanted to enclose Odney Common.

National Trust by 1937. These included Widbrook, Cock Marsh, Winter Hill, Cookham Dean Commons, Pinkneys Green Common and Maidenhead Thicket.[14]

Religion

Holy Trinity parish church is a Grade II*

Purbeck marble tomb for Robert Peeke, clerk of the spicery to Henry VI, (died 1517), and his wife; a tablet by Flaxman, to mariner Sir Isaac Pocock, uncle of dramatist Isaac Pocock, who drowned in the Thames in 1810; and a mural tablet to Arthur Babham (died 1560) with an entablature and a shield.[15]

Cookham Wesleyan Methodist chapel was built in 1846 and extended in 1911. It now houses the Stanley Spencer Gallery.[16]

Economy

Cookham is home to the

Chartered Institute of Marketing, based in Moor Hall. The John Lewis Partnership, operator of John Lewis department stores and Waitrose supermarkets, has a subsidised hotel and conference centre based at Odney for partners and their guests. The Partnership has four other subsidised hotels, at Ambleside (Lake District), Bala (north Wales), Brownsea Island (Poole Harbour) and Leckford (Hampshire).[citation needed
]

Governance

Cookham's municipal services are provided by the

primary care trust) – NHS Services
.

Cookham is in the Maidenhead parliamentary constituency, the seat has been held since its creation in 1997 by Theresa May (Conservative).

Transport

Cookham railway station

Cookham village is on the

Arriva Shires & Essex six days a week. The river Thames has a long stretch of moorings above Cookham Bridge
.

Attractions

The village as a tourist destination is a convenient base for walks along the Thames Path and across National Trust property. There is a selection of restaurants and pubs in the High Street. The Stanley Spencer Gallery, based in the former Methodist chapel, has a permanent exhibition of the artist's works.[18]

Arts and literature

Stanley Spencer's birthplace and home in Cookham
  • Kenneth Grahame is said to have been inspired by the River Thames at Cookham to write The Wind in the Willows, as he lived at The Mount in Cookham Dean as a child and returned to the village to write the book. Quarry Wood in Bisham, adjoining, is said to have been the original Wild Wood.
  • The English painter Stanley Spencer was born here and most of his works depict villagers and their life in Cookham. His religious paintings usually had Cookham as a backdrop and a number of the landmarks in his canvases can still be seen in the village. Several of his works can be seen in the gallery in the centre of the village, close to where he lived. He also painted frescoes in at least one of the private houses in Cookham; however, they are not open to public viewing. His ashes are buried in the churchyard in the village.
  • In Noël Coward's play Hay Fever, retired actress Judith Bliss and her family live in Cookham.
  • Cookham is mentioned in Harold Pinter's short play Victoria Station which premiered at the Royal National Theatre with Paul Rogers and Martin Jarvis.[citation needed]

Notable residents

Town twinning

Cookham is

twinned
with:

Trivia

  • In 2002 Cookham was at the centre of a row over the Department for Work and Pensions' description of the village's social profile as "somewhat spoiled by the gin and Jag brigade".[25]
  • In 1997, 1999 and 2006 Cookham had its own
    radio station, Cookham Summer FM, that broadcast from Cookham railway station's waiting room and included a large number of Cookham residents.[26]

Notes

  1. ^ a b "Civil Parish population 2011". Neighbourhood Statistics. Office for National Statistics. Retrieved 30 November 2016.
  2. ^ "Britain's richest villages". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 5 September 2011. Retrieved 3 April 2011.
  3. ^ Mills, AD (1991). A Dictionary of English Place-Names. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 90.
  4. ^ Berkshire Records Office. "Cookham".
  5. ^ "Magic Map Application". Magic.defra.gov.uk. Retrieved 19 March 2017.
  6. ^ Williams, David (10 May 2011). "Finds record for: SUR-910C71". The Portable Antiquities Scheme. Retrieved 14 September 2023.
  7. ^ Williams, David (13 May 2011) [10 May 2011]. "Finds record for: SUR-90A287". The Portable Antiquities Scheme. Retrieved 14 September 2023.
  8. ^ "Saxon Defence, Sashes and Cookham Area - Attachment A". Minas Tirith Archaeological Survey. 17 April 2008. Archived from the original on 13 January 2013. Retrieved 16 February 2010.
  9. ^ "Archaeologists discover Mercian monastery from Anglo-Saxon period". HeritageDaily - Archaeology News. 19 August 2021. Retrieved 12 June 2022.
  10. ^ "Anglo-Saxon monastery was important trade hub - University of Reading". www.reading.ac.uk. Retrieved 15 September 2022.
  11. ^ Ford, David Nash (2001). "Cookham". Royal Berkshire History.
  12. ^ "The Cookhams". Archived from the original on 11 May 2010.
  13. ISBN 0-9516276-0-0
    .
  14. The National Trust
    . Retrieved 23 May 2011.
  15. ^ "Church of Holy Trinity, Cookham". historicengland.org.uk.
  16. ^ Oxley, G. W. "Cookham Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, Berkshire".
  17. ^ "Cookham Parish Council". Cookham Parish Council. Retrieved 23 January 2023.
  18. ^ "Stanley Spencer Gallery".
  19. ^ Bulbul, Nuray (22 May 2022). "Ulrika Jonsson health battle - TV presenter's age, marriages, children and stunning home". Oxfordshire Live. Retrieved 14 September 2023.
  20. ^ Denyer, Lucy (30 September 2012). "Stockholm is where Ulrika Jonsson's heart is". The Sunday Times. London. Retrieved 14 September 2023.
  21. ^ "Return of Rea". Manchester Evening News. 30 March 2006. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
  22. ^ Bramley, Pat (14 September 2019). "Former home of singer Chris Rea is on sale in Cookham". Bucks Free Press. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
  23. ^ Laughton, John Knox. Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Young, George (1732-1810)  – via Wikisource.
  24. ^ "British towns twinned with French towns". Archant Community Media Ltd. Archived from the original on 5 July 2013. Retrieved 11 July 2013.
  25. ^ Wainwright, Martin (1 January 2003). "Town bristles at 'gin and Jag' slur". The Guardian.
  26. ^ "homepage". 87.9 FM. Bvoxy Ltd.

Sources

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Cookham.
Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Cookham.
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