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Welcome to the Cookham Matters blog!  Cookham really matters to me, and I want to take a bet that it matters to you too.  I’d like to support this community by creating a place that connects all of us, as much or as little as you want.  A resource where you can learn more about the beautiful village environment we live in, the local people and business that help support us and the leisure activities and that we all enjoy.  When I say “leisure”, you can assume that there more than a healthy bias on food and drink.  I’m looking forward to having a proper excuse to talk to even more of you, and hoping that by reinforcing the connections in our village, we can build an even stronger sense of community. 

You are going to have to bear with me – I’m still learning the technology to make it happen.  And I’m keen to understand what and who you are interested in, so I can share what you want to read - so please don’t be shy, contact me with your ideas. 

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Historical Cookham

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I was at the Chartered Institute of Marketing last week on a business-related seminar.  I came out with a bag of goodies that included a booklet on the history of Moor Hall and its inhabitants.  I love this sort of thing, so I sat down and read it.  Lots of interest but one thing that caught my eye (because I had never heard of it before) was a place called Ye Strande Castle – literally a castle that was built by a local architect called William Joshua Grazebrook in 1880.  At the time it was cutting edge construction because it was built of something called shuttered concrete, which from what I can gather, is concrete that gets poured into mould and then fitted together as blocks.  Except what they did not know in those days, is that if you make a building using this method, you must use steel rods to reinforce it.  Anyway, it was somewhere near Strand Water and everyone in the village HATED it apparently, so it was just as well that eventually, it fell down! I thought to try a
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"A full and true relation of the death and slaughter..." in Cookham. Yes really!

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Many of us are familiar with tracking the local film sets of Midsommer Murders. The day I had to inch over half a tonne of very reluctant equine past Detective Inspector Barnaby, a funeral parlour and the crew camp (including catering unit) opposite The Jolly, is a day I shall not forget.   However, all that murder and mayhem is very far from the Cookham we know and love right? Well actually, no...we have had our fair share of drama and so here I am to tell you about some of it. To quote Julie, “Let’s start at the very beginning…” when the peoples of Cookham lived alongside the river, following its course as it changed.   The Thames acted as a boundary between clans from "Bourne End" and "Cookham" and over time, Bronze Age settlers used Cockmarsh as a burial site.   The small hills that you will pass if you are heading to The Bounty are tumuli or burial mounds, and they contain the bodies of a woman, a small child and a tiny horse!   When the Romans arriv
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Pay and Display Car Parking at The Moor

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You may have seen that  The National Trust  will soon be charging for parking down at The Moor.  This has received a mixed response from residents and visitors alike, but I think it is worth explaining a little more about it.  I have seen people comment that it is simply a revenue generating opportunity, and the facts of the matter are – that is correct, but perhaps not for the reasons that you would imagine.  Countryside NT properties such as Maidenhead and Cookham Commons (MCC) suffer from not being able to generate much of an income.  Some money can be generated through sales of wood products or specific area membership recruitment, but most rely on quite a meagre annual budget to maintain and conserve the land they own - which is not sustainable going forward. Pay and Display car parking is a way of generating an additional income for NT countryside properties such as the MCC.   The area here covers 834 acres and costs over £70K a year to run.  It has very little in the way of
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