Cookham is the riverside village north of Maidenhead that Stanley Spencer painted all his life. The parish has three parts: Cookham village by the Thames and the Moor, Cookham Rise around the station, and Cookham Dean on the hill above, with about 5,500 people between them, most in the Rise. Green belt separates it from Maidenhead. Details below were checked on 31 October and 1 November 2026.
Getting there
- Train: Cookham station (Station Hill, SL6 9BP) is on the Marlow branch from Maidenhead, run by Great Western Railway, with a 56-space car park and step-free access to all platforms.
- Bus: routes 37 and 37M (Carousel) run between Windsor and High Wycombe via Maidenhead, Furze Platt, Cookham Rise and Cookham village.
- Parking: the council has no car park in Cookham; the National Trust’s Moor car park and the station car park are the options.
- Toilets: public toilets on Sutton Road (SL6 9SY), open 7.45am to 8pm from April to October and to 6pm in winter.
Things to see and do
- Stanley Spencer Gallery, High Street: volunteer-run since 1962 in the Wesleyan chapel Spencer attended with his mother. Its winter show, “Stanley Spencer and Gary Bunt: What a Dream”, runs from 6 November 2026 to 21 March 2027 with Swan Upping on loan from Tate. stanleyspencer.org.uk. Royal Borough Advantage Card holders get half-price entry.
- Cookham Commons (National Trust): Cookham Moor at the village centre starts walks along the Thames to Cock Marsh, the chalk grassland opposite Bourne End with its Bronze Age barrows, and south to Widbrook Common, grazed from May to October; Winter Hill is the viewpoint.
- Holy Trinity Church, Church Gate: open daily from dawn to dusk; its churchyard is the setting of Spencer’s painting The Resurrection, Cookham.
- Cookham Lock, Odney Lane: an Environment Agency lock with visitor moorings on the island (no access from the island to the village).
Eating and drinking
Open when we checked on 31 October 2026 (see our pubs and bars and restaurants pages for details): The Crown on the Moor; The White Oak and The Old Swan Uppers at The Pound; The Ferry on Sutton Road by the river, reopened in September 2025; Malik’s and Peking Inn on the High Street; and The Jolly Farmer and Uncle Tom’s Cabin in Cookham Dean, where the Metre Market is held at the village hall every Friday from 8.30am to 1pm. Bel & The Dragon on the High Street is being refurbished; its own website gives 16 February as the reopening date (checked 2 November 2026). To stay, Karma Sanctum on the Green in Cookham Dean has nine rooms (see hotels).
Events
- Cookham Festival: a volunteer-run arts festival held every other May since 1967; the 2026 festival ran from 1 to 17 May, so the next is due in May 2028. cookhamfestival.co.uk.
- Cookham Regatta: dragon boats, classic cars, a dog show and stalls on Marsh Meadow, run by the Rotary Clubs of Cookham Bridge and Maidenhead Thames; next on Saturday 4 September 2027. cookhamregatta.org.uk.
A little history
Stanley Spencer was born on the High Street in 1891, trained at the Slade, served in Macedonia in the First World War, painted The Resurrection, Cookham in the 1920s and the Sandham Memorial Chapel after it, was knighted in 1959 and died that December; he called Cookham a kind of earthly paradise (Royal Borough biography). Kenneth Grahame lived in Cookham Dean as a boy and again as an adult at Mayfield on Dean Lane, now Herries School, where a Royal Borough plaque unveiled in 1996 commemorates him; The Wind in the Willows grew out of those years.
Parish council: cookham-pc.gov.uk.
