Maidenhead

Maidenhead (formerly Maiden-hythe), "the midway wharf," between Marlow and Windsor, is a corporate borough and market and union town, and head of a petty sessional division; it was within the parishes of Bray and Cookham, but on October 15, 1894, was made a distinct civil parish by Local Government Board Order No. 31,898; it is on the right bank of the Thames, which is here crossed by a stone bridge of seven arches, erected in 1772 at a cost of £20,000 from plans by Sir Robert Taylor, architect, and connecting this place with Taplow, in Buckinghamshire: the town stands on the old Bath road, 26 miles from London (by road) and 24 by rail, 13 north-east from Reading, 9 east-by-south from Henley and 6 north-west from Windsor, in the Eastern division of the county, hundred of Bray, county court district of Windsor, rural deanery of Maidenhead, archdeaconry of Berks and diocese of Oxford. There is a station here on the Great Western railway, which crosses the river on a brick bridge of two arches, designed by Sir Isambard Brunel, the distinguished engineer, and remarkable as exhibiting the greatest span ever yet accomplished in brick.