Church Island, River Thames

St Mary's, Staines, is a Church of England parish church in the town and parish of Staines-upon-Thames, in the Spelthorne borough of Surrey and the Greater London Urban Area. The parish is in the Archdeaconry of Middlesex in the Diocese of London. The church building is on an unusual rise against the Thames at the west end of the town. It has been a Grade II* listed building since 11 August 1952.

Staines Bridge is a road bridge running in a south-west to north-east direction across the River Thames in Surrey. It is on the modern A308 road and links the boroughs of Spelthorne and Runnymede at Staines-upon-Thames and Egham Hythe. The bridge is Grade II listed.The bridge crosses the Thames on the reach between Penton Hook Lock and Bell Weir Lock, and is close to and upstream of the main mouth of the River Colne, a tributary. The bridge carries the Thames Path across the river. Its forebear built in Roman Britain, the bridge has been bypassed by three arterial routes, firstly in 1961 by the Runnymede Bridge near Wraysbury and in the 1970s by the building of the UK motorway network (specifically near Maidenhead and Chertsey). Owing to the commercial centres of the town in Spelthorne and of Egham, the bridge has had peak hour queues since at least the 1930s.

Staines West railway station was one of three stations in the town of Staines-upon-Thames, 19 miles (31 km) west of central London. The station was opened on 2 November 1885 as the southern terminus of the Staines & West Drayton Railway (SWDR).

The Colne is a river and a tributary of the River Thames in England. Just over half its course is in south Hertfordshire. Downstream, it forms the boundary between Buckinghamshire and the London Borough of Hillingdon. The confluence with the River Thames is on the Staines reach (above Penton Hook Lock) at Staines-upon-Thames. Two of its distributaries, constructed in the 1600 – 1750 period largely for aesthetic reasons for Hampton Court and for Syon Park, have been maintained. Their main purpose was not drinking water but these can be likened to the New River in scale and in date. Crossing its route, many viaducts and a canal, the intersecting Grand Union Canal, have been recognised for pioneering engineering during the Industrial Revolution. Digging for gravel and clay along its lower course near Rickmansworth has created a belt of flooded pits below the water table, as established lakes, many of which are well-adapted habitats for wildlife, protected as nature reserves. The river, meadows and lakes form the Colne Valley regional park covering 43 square miles (110 km2).

The School House in Staines-upon-Thames is a surviving example of an early 19th-century one room school in the UK and was part of Miss Margaret Pope's efforts supporting the Quaker principle of bringing education to all (including those excluded from Church of England schools) which, in the early 19th Century was progressed by both men and women.

The Wraysbury River is an anabranch of the River Colne to the west of London.

Staines Town Hall is a municipal building in the Market Square, Staines-upon-Thames, Surrey, England. The town hall, which briefly served as the headquarters of Spelthorne Borough Council, is a Grade II listed building.

The Magna Carta School is an 11–16 academy school in Staines, England, which has been awarded specialisms in Technology and ICT. It is named after Magna Carta due to its proximity to Runnymede, where the document was signed. The school contains over 1200 pupils including over 60 prefects. At an OfSTED inspection in 2022, the school received an Inspection Grade of 3 (Requires Improvement).

Hollyhock Island is an inhabited island in the River Thames in England on the reach between Bell Weir Lock and Penton Hook Lock.

Holm Island is an island in the River Thames in England on the reach above Penton Hook Lock, near Staines. It is on the Buckinghamshire bank, just upstream of Hollyhock Island. A house on it known as "The Nest" was used as a hideaway by the future Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson during the 1930s.

Staines Boat Club is a rowing club between Penton Hook Lock and Bell Weir Lock on the River Thames in England. The club was founded in 1869 when it was first listed in the Rowing Almanac as racing in that season. Its boathouse formally reopened in May 2022 after renovations. It is located next to the Hythe spur of the Thames Path in Egham Hythe, historically also known as Staines hythe, the last word meaning small harbour or river harbour. Staines has been the organising or support club for Staines Regatta since its inception and predates the rowing clubs on the Putney Embankment listed below. The club was founded in 1851 as an amateur rowing club while a manual-professional distinction applied to the sport, the same early year in the sport as the formal foundation of the club serving Windsor and Eton. The club has membership groups for different age groups.

Staines-upon-Thames is a market town in northwest Surrey, England, around 17 miles (28 kilometres) west of central London. It is in the Borough of Spelthorne, at the confluence of the River Thames and Colne. Historically part of Middlesex, the town was transferred to Surrey in 1965. Staines is close to Heathrow Airport and is linked to the national motorway network by the M25 and M3. The earliest evidence of human activity in the area is from the Paleolithic and, during the Neolithic, there was a causewayed enclosure on Staines Moor. The first bridge across the Thames at Staines is thought to have been built by the Romans and there was a settlement in the area around the modern High Street by the end of the 1st century CE. Throughout the Middle Ages, Staines was primarily an agricultural settlement and was held by Westminster Abbey. The first surviving record of a market is from 1218, but one may have taken place near St Mary's Church in the Anglo-Saxon period. The industrialisation of Staines began in the mid-17th century when Thomas Ashby established a brewery in the town. Improvements to the local transport network in the mid-19th century also stimulated an expansion of the local population. The current Staines Bridge, designed by George Rennie, was opened in 1832 by William IV and the first railway line through Staines opened in 1848. The town became a centre for linoleum manufacture in 1864, when Frederick Walton established a factory on the site of the 13th-century Hale Mill. At the end of the 20th century, Staines became infamous as the home town of the fictional film and television character, Ali G. Although many local residents felt that the town's reputation was suffering through its association with the character, Sacha Baron Cohen, the creator of Ali G, praised Staines for being a "lovely, leafy, middle-class suburb... where swans swim under the beautiful bridge". Partly in response to the reaction to the character, Spelthorne Borough Council voted in 2011 to add the suffix "upon-Thames" to the name.