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Ray Mill Island

Berkshire geography stubsIslands of BerkshireIslands of the River ThamesMaidenheadUse British English from October 2017
RayMillIsland01
RayMillIsland01

Ray Mill Island is an island in the River Thames in England at Boulter's Lock near Maidenhead, Berkshire. It is immediately to the east of Boulter's Island, separated by the former millstream. The island is now a park administered by the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead. It is named after the Ray family who once had a flour mill here. The mill was constructed in 1726 on the site of a previous mill, and continued to produce flour until the 1920s. Boulter's weir runs from the top end of the island across to the east bank near Taplow. A kayak flume has been built adjacent to the weir on the island. For over 20 years until it was stolen in October 2011, the island housed The Companion, a memorial statue for four local schoolboys who died in a skiing accident. A new version of the statue was unveiled in the original location in July 2012.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Ray Mill Island (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Ray Mill Island
Boat Ramp,

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Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 51.5348 ° E -0.6986 °
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Boat Ramp
SL6 8LW
England, United Kingdom
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Taplow Barrow
Taplow Barrow

The Taplow Barrow is an early medieval burial mound in Taplow Court, an estate in the south-eastern English county of Buckinghamshire. Constructed in the seventh century, when the region was part of an Anglo-Saxon kingdom, it contained the remains of a deceased individual and their grave goods, now mostly in the British Museum. It is often referred to in archaeology as the Taplow burial. The Taplow burial was made in what archaeologists call the "conversion period", during which the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were undergoing Christianisation. This period saw the erection of "Final Phase" burials: a select number of inhumations featuring lavish grave goods far richer than the graves of the preceding "migration period" (fifth and sixth centuries). The majority of these Final Phase burials were spatially separate from the new churchyard burials, although the Taplow Burial—which was likely placed next to an early church—is one of the few known exceptions. Located atop a hill, the area around it was previously an Iron Age hillfort and offers widespread views of the local landscape. Interred beneath the mound was a single individual—interpreted by archaeologists as a local chieftain—buried with a range of grave goods. These included military gear such as a sword, three spears, and two shields, as well as other items like drinking horns and glass beakers. Such elite items likely reflected the individual's aristocratic status. Several of these items were of probable Kentish manufacture, suggesting that the individual may have had links with the Kingdom of Kent. Little of the body survived, preventing osteoarchaeological analysis to determine their age or sex, although the content of the grave goods has led archaeologists to believe the individual was male. The mound was excavated in 1883 by three local antiquarians. At the time, it represented the most lavish Anglo-Saxon burial then known and remained so until the discovery of the ship burial at Sutton Hoo, Suffolk in the 1930s. At the request of the clergyman in charge of the churchyard, the grave goods recovered were donated to the British Museum, where many of them remain on display.

Skindles
Skindles

Skindles was a hotel in Maidenhead, England, on the Buckinghamshire bank of the River Thames by Maidenhead Bridge. Formerly the Orkney Arms, built in 1743, it was turned from a coaching inn into a fashionable hotel by William Skindle in 1833. In the 20th century, it became notorious as a place for adulterous assignations. Its guests included Winston Churchill and Princess Margaret. Musicians who performed there included The Stranglers, The Rolling Stones, and The Strawbs. The hotel appears in the film Kind Hearts and Coronets. Skindles is mentioned in the play Journey's End by R. C. Sherriff: 'We danced a bit at Skindles, and drank a lot of port and muck'.A property developer bought the site in 2006 for just over £30m, but Irish Nationwide bank took it over in 2009 to try to recover a £40m loan. The property was then transferred to the Irish bank NAMA. Barratt Homes and the National Grid then secured an option for most of the site for a joint development project involving housing and a hotel. South Bucks council adopted a residential-led development brief in July 2013 but argued that it would prefer Skindles Hotel itself to be renovated; any demolition proposals would need to be "robustly justified".By summer 2013, the hotel's condition had begun to fall further into disrepair, with parts of the roof beginning to collapse under the repeated weathering caused by the recent hard winters that hit the UK. The building had been derelict from about the mid-1990s. The hotel's site was put up for sale by in November 2013, after Barratt's option expired. It was bought by the housebuilder Berkeley Group in February 2014.Demolition of Skindles and clearance of the surrounding area started around 18 October 2015 to make way for a housing development of nearly 300 homes, office space, a restaurant and walkways along the Thames. The restaurant on the old hotel site was purchased in 2018 and developed into a French brasserie called Roux at Skindles.