Cookham

The Stanley Spencer Gallery is an art museum in the South of England dedicated to the life and work of the artist Stanley Spencer. It was opened in 1962 and is located in the Thameside village of Cookham, Berkshire where the artist was born and spent much of his life. The gallery's collection comprises over 100 paintings and drawings, which includes a number of long-term loans. Exhibitions are mounted on a regular basis and include loans from other public institutions and public collections.

Cookham Abbey was an Anglo-Saxon monastery in Berkshire, England. It was established by 726.

Odney is a common and island (Eyot) in the Thames, part of the civil parish of Cookham, in the English county of Berkshire. The island may have been sacred to the main Saxon god, Woden, as "Wodenes-Eye" ("Woden’s Isle").

Cookham Bridge is a road bridge in Cookham, Berkshire, carrying the A4094 road across the River Thames in England. It is on the reach above Cookham Lock and links Cookham on the Berkshire bank with Bourne End in Buckinghamshire. Discounting a Roman bridge nearby, the bridge opened as a wooden bridge in 1840 in place of a longstanding ferry but today's iron-based structure dates from 1867. For 107 years a toll was payable – ceasing in 1947 when Berkshire County Council bought the bridge from its private owners. The bridge has a single lane for vehicles controlled by traffic lights at each end, and pedestrian pavements. The vehicle weight limit is 7.5 tonnes, save for buses and coaches.

Sol Studios (also known as The Mill or The Sol) is a recording studio located in Cookham, Berkshire, England. The recording studio and control room are part of the complex property, along an old watermill and residential wheelhouse in the countryside. The property was bought in 1974 by Gus Dudgeon, and the recording studio was built in the following year. Gus ran the studio as his own production facility until running into financial trouble when the studio was sold to Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page. Page decided to revert to the old name of "The Sol". HSH Music, a partnership of Rod Halling, Roy Shipston and Simon Holmes, purchased the studio from Page in 1988. They redeveloped it over the next two years into a commercial three-studio complex, utilising a quadruple garage on the site as Studio 2 and part of the old Mill Wheel housing as Studio 3. Chris Rea liked Studio 2 so much that he decided to block book it for a year at a time. In February 1994, HSH Music sold the site as a "residential" property. The new owners, however, failed to grasp that the building was built like a nuclear shelter and not really suitable for conversion. They subsequently sold it to Chris Rea, who owned it until 2006.

Formosa Island is an island in the River Thames in England at Cookham Lock near Cookham, Berkshire, with two smaller adjacent islands. The island is one of the largest on the non-tidal river Thames with 50 acres (20 ha) of woodland. It can be reached by footbridge from Cookham. It is between two of the four channels in the river at Cookham, the one closest to Cookham was once the mill stream to a paper mill at Cookham. The one on the other side leads to Odney Weir. The adjacent Mill Island has the lock channel on the other side. Beyond the lock channel is Sashes Island and the channel furthest from Cookham is Hedsor Water, the original navigation channel, which was blocked by the weir in 1830 when the lock was opened, causing loss of trade to then owner Lord Boston.

Sashes Island is an island in the River Thames in England at Cookham Lock near Cookham, Berkshire. It is now open farmland, but has Roman and Anglo-Saxon connections. The island is located between Hedsor Water and the present navigation channel leading to Cookham Lock. It can be reached from Cookham by footbridges across three channels of the River Thames via Formosa Island and Mill Island. Its name is derived from Sceaftesege or "Sceaf’s Isle".

Hedsor Water is a stretch of the River Thames near Cookham, Berkshire which runs to the north of Sashes Island. Hedsor Water was once the main navigation of the Thames but was by-passed by the construction of Cookham Lock in 1830. Navigation is only possible for the first 100 metres (330 ft) from the downstream end, where a few temporary moorings are available, except for smaller boats. Cookham Lock opened in 1830, but no weir was built at this time. In 1832 Lord Boston of Hedsor House claimed compensation for loss of towpath rights along Hedsor Water which he was granted. In 1837 a weir was found necessary and built across Hedsor Water, leading to further litigation from Lord Boston for loss of trade to the wharf he owned there. Hedsor Wharf, on the upper reach of Hedsor Water had been an important trading post. The paper made at nearby Cookham Paper Mill was shipped from there and the stone used to build Shardeloes was brought from Oxford to Hedsor Wharf. This time the only compensation he received was the building of a flash lock in the weir. This was removed when the lock was rebuilt in 1869, as Lord Boston had built eel bucks in the stream in the meantime.In 2003 Hedsor Water was the subject of a High Court judgement against Josie Rowland, the widow of Tiny Rowland and current owner of Hedsor Wharf Estate, who wanted to stop the Water being used as a public right of way. The Environment Agency maintained that a "Public Right of Navigation" existed under the Thames Preservation Act 1885 and a court action agreed that the right could only be changed by legislation. The judge ordered that signs saying that the stretch of water was private should be removed.

The River Wye is a river in Buckinghamshire, England. Around 10.5 miles (16.9 km) in length, it rises close to West Wycombe village in the Chiltern Hills and flows through High Wycombe before emptying into the River Thames at Bourne End, on the reach above Cookham Lock. In particularly wet years, the source can temporarily change and effectively extend the river by another mile, due to a chalk spring rising above the ground in a field further up the same valley. High Wycombe takes part of its name from the river, which now runs mostly underground through the town. Pann Mill watermill, at the eastern end of Wycombe, is the last remaining watermill on the River Wye.

Cookham Lock is a lock with weirs situated on the River Thames near Cookham, Berkshire, about a half-mile downstream of Cookham Bridge. The lock is set in a lock cut which is one of four streams here and it is surrounded by woods. On one side is Sashes Island and on the other is Mill Island connected to Formosa Island, the largest on the non-tidal Thames. There are several weirs nearby. Hedsor weir was placed across the old navigation channel in 1837, seven years after the lock was opened. There is a lower weir, and Odney weir is on the channel next to Formosa Island. A short distance away from the lock is Odney, with the Odney Club situated on an ait. Navigation to the Odney Club by boat is possible, but is extremely difficult due to the shallow waters. It is thought that this is deliberate - to disallow non-members from entering the club site without paying the entrance fees.

Cookham railway station serves the village of Cookham, Berkshire, England. Great Western Railway trains between Maidenhead and Marlow serve the station on the Marlow branch line, but through services to and from London Paddington in peak hours Monday to Friday no longer run. It is 2 miles 73 chains (4.7 km) down the line from Maidenhead and 27 miles 12 chains (43.7 km) measured from Paddington. Cookham station was opened by the Wycombe Railway in 1854. The station now has a single platform, but the remains of a second platform are still visible. The former Station House is now let to private occupants.

Bourne End Railway Bridge is a railway bridge carrying the Marlow Branch Line, and a footpath over the River Thames in Bourne End, Buckinghamshire, England. It crosses the Thames on the reach between Cookham Lock and Marlow Lock. The bridge was originally constructed in wood by Isambard Kingdom Brunel as part of the Wycombe Railway, opened in 1854 and operated in broad gauge until 1870. The narrow spans were unpopular with river traffic and the bridge was reconstructed in steel in 1895. A footbridge, cantilevered out from the railway bridge was added in 1992, to take the Thames Path across the river; this substitutes for the historical towpath crossing point at Spade Oak ferry, about 1 km upstream of the bridge.In 2013, the bridge was restored and repainted in green, and a large number of rivets which had rusted away were replaced. The restoration took nearly a year to complete, being finished in December. There was a plan to electrify the line, but due to cost overruns during electrifying the GWR main line, this has apparently been postponed indefinitely.