Cookham is rich both historically and archaeologically. There are tantalising glimpses of England’s history from all periods, which need expanding through archaeological research and investigation.
The whole of Cookham Village, which historically extends from the Thames at Formosa and Odney westwards up to the railway station, is of potential archaeological significance. Any building development, whatever the scale, may encounter material or other evidence of archaeological significance. It should only proceed after prior and thorough professional investigation has established either that nothing is at risk, or appropriate mitigation measures are undertaken. The area forms the heart of Cookham’s considerable historical heritage, and it may be reasonably anticipated that much evidence remains to be found.
There is much of Cookham’s heritage, especially where there is evidence of Saxon or Roman period occupation, that has yet to be properly researched and investigated archaeologically. During the Saxon period, Cookham was of national importance, having a minster (monastery) dating back to at least 740AD, with King Offa of Mercia’s politically influential widow, Cynethryth, in charge as abbess during the 790s. A Saxon royal hall linked to the minster, probably a large, timber-framed building, would have stood close by and may have been found in the most recent excavations.
It is documented that Alfred the Great ordered the construction of a burghal hidage fort at Cookham in about 879AD to protect against and deter Danish attack. Whether this was constructed in whole, or in part, is unknown as is the location: evidence either way has yet to be found. Over a century later, Aethelred ‘the Unready’ held three royal Witans, or King’s councils, here. We have not yet identified the six high-status early Anglo-Saxon warriors, probably of a ruling local family, whose graves were uncovered at Rowborough, just to the north of Poundfield, in 1854. Such significant burials often overlooked their settlements and early, mid and late Saxon pottery found at Poundfield in 2008 possibly bears out this theory, further confirming Poundfield’s immense importance to Cookham.
It is vital that opportunities are not lost to discover the village’s unrevealed secrets from this very important era in Cookham and the archaeology of all other periods and throughout the parish. All the sites listed below are considered important, but those bearing asterisks are of special significance, where any development should proceed only in exceptional circumstances.
**Holy Trinity vicarage paddock, vicarage garden and the Berries Road area
This site is under intensive investigation by the University of Reading, and this will continue for several years. Excavation and subsequent analysis have already revealed that the area served as an important industrial and trading centre associated with Cookham’s minster or Abbey. It would have had influence beyond the immediate site and extended into the surrounding area. A large cemetery discovered in 2023 and associated with the Abbey would have served neighbouring settlements and farmsteads also.
The paddock is shown on old maps as the Little Bury, and the name Berries on the adjacent site is a corruption of The Bury, signifying that the land north of the present High Street was the area of early settlement before Cookham was further developed by about 1225. The name of Southlands Cottages at the west end of the High Street (early cottages that were rebuilt in 1894) gives a hint that the site they stood on was the southern edge of the Saxon settlement.
It is likely that buildings relating to the Saxon minster, and a significant medieval house which is shown on an early map, stood on or close to the Little Bury site.
A strip of the vicarage garden and others in the High Street appears to have been a route running behind the medieval burgage plots and requires investigation, as a probable infilled ditch there could contain important finds from the early and late medieval periods.
During building work in the 1960s, human skeletons were found deeply buried on the site of a property in Berries Road.
**The Grove, Odney and Sashes Island
This was part of a royal Anglo-Saxon estate and this is one possible site of a burghal hidage fort of King Alfred the Great, dating to about 879AD.
**White Place Farm and fields to the north
White Place is important historically as part of the royal Saxon estate and features in medieval and later history, requiring a good deal of further investigation. The field between White Place farm and Odney was field-walked by MAS a few years ago and finds included Saxon pottery.
**Formosa
This estate is on the site of the late medieval house and estate of the wealthy Babham family of Cookham. It also contained a mill dating back to at least the C17, and possibly a good deal earlier.
Sutton Road. Fields to the south of Black Butts, also possibly the east side of the road.
This area is believed to have been the site of an early satellite settlement of Cookham, as reflected in the name Sutton (South farm) Road. Fields on both sides of the road are worthy of investigation.
The Butts is likely to be the site of Cookham’s medieval archery butts.
*Gardens in Cookham High St.
An important area to maintain a watch on during building work, especially the slightly higher eastern end of the north side, which may have been developed earlier as part of the late Saxon town.
*School Lane
Roman and Iron Age coins and artefacts believed to be Roman were found in the 1950s in a garden on the south side of the road, close to the school. On the opposite side of the road is the site of a brewery, active from at least about 1710 to the early C20, with documentary evidence of an earlier manor house and court house on the site.
**Poundfield, The Pound and the surrounding area northwards to Rowborough and Noah's Ark field.
This is potentially one of the most important historical areas in Cookham.
Apart from the Spencer considerations and other important reasons for protecting Poundfield area at all costs, recent archaeological evidence suggests that there was occupation in the vicinity throughout the whole Anglo-Saxon period.
The sunny, south-facing slope, way above the level of the flooded Moor, which encroached on the church area settlement, was perhaps initially an obvious site for an extended family to set up their houses and farmstead.
The early Saxon pottery fragments discovered here reflect similar early Saxon occupation near the church and former minster area. Archaeologists have suggested that the causeway on the Moor, known to have existed in the late medieval period, could possibly be of Saxon origin, linking the two higher areas of settlement in times of flood.
**Rowborough
Uphill, immediately to the north of Poundfield, is the site of six early Anglo-Saxon high-status warrior burials, accompanied by swords and shields. The graves, set imposingly on the brow of the hill, which at the time would be clearly visible from the opposite side of the river, were discovered in 1854. This would be likely to have a direct connection with the settlement on the slope of Poundfield below. This may be a rare sentinel burial, similar to that of the recently discovered Marlow Warlord and the princely burial at Taplow, where local rulers are buried on hills overlooking their settlements below. Investigations are currently being made into these local burials.
The fields surrounding this area also show archaeology in landscape features and finds.
*Bradcutts Lane & Alleyn’s Lane
The medieval manorial and hundred court house for Cookham and a wider area stood somewhere on the fields covering The Lea, Lea Farm and Winter Hill Farm. There here have been a number of theories as to its exact site, including Bowden’s Green, where Bradcutts Lane meets Terry’s Lane.
Near Lea Barn and close to a house called Harvest Moon, there are cropmark features which have been identified as possibly a settlement site of Romano-British date.
Cookham’s historian, Stephen Darby, stated in 1909 that the site of Round Copse, off Alleyn’s Lane, was traditionally believed by local people to be where the Romans stabled their horses. Some plain Roman floor tiles, roughly squared, were discarded with builders’ rubble when a house (Dunton’s Wood) was built on the site of Round Copse in 1986.
**Heath Field, between Terry’s and Bradcutts Lanes, and field to the south
This shows a large number of interesting features in aerial photos and on Lidar, as yet unidentified. Several linked enclosures can be seen that could possibly form part of a Romano-British settlement complex. Romano-British pottery and a bronze earring found in the Hill Grove Farm area may have a connection to this site.
Darby mentions that there are several foundations of buildings in and around this area, and features show in aerial photos. Hill Grove was formerly known as Swineshead Tithe Farm.
Some underground brickwork foundations or other construction was discovered when a farm cart fell into a large hole that appeared on the south side of Heath Field in the early C20.
This is another site that has never been properly investigated but could be extremely important.
*Newmans Farm
Fields to the west of Grange Road, going westwards uphill towards Heath Field and Bradcutts Lane.
There is an interesting large, almost rectangular, enclosure shape showing on Lidar, and features covering a wide area that show on aerial photos. There is also an anomaly in the form of a ridge which crosses over Terry’s Lane towards the golf course. It is reputed that a possibly Roman trackway ran north-south close to Grange Road on the east side of the field and continued across the present-day golf course to Cockmarsh.
*Winter Hill & Cockmarsh
There is an area of scattered crop marks at Winter Hill, visible on aerial photographs, probably of a variety of periods from Bronze Age or earlier to Roman or post-Roman. Finds from Hill Grove Farm area (SMR 00506.00.000) suggest a Romano-British settlement somewhere in the area.
There are some cropmark and Lidar features in the last few listed sites that seem likely to be connected, and are probably of Roman origin. This area had a probable river crossing of that period.
Henry VIII’s queens held this estate, known as Bradleys, with a house at Stonehouse.
Field to the north, at the top of Terry’s Lane
NW of Greythatch, opposite Heath Field, bordering Cockmarsh to the north. There are circular features near the road, possibly hut circles, visible in aerial photos.
**Strande Castle area including Strande Park and the adjacent field south of Strande Park.
There is evidence of a Roman farmstead site in this area, with the exact site as yet to be identified through archaeological fieldwork. A Roman well and corn-drying kiln, plus other Roman artefacts, were discovered in the late 1960s. Luke Over of Maidenhead AHS, who excavated there, stated that he found evidence of Romano-British occupation in the fields to the south of Strande Park, and finds of first and second century artefacts have since been recovered from the surrounding area.
*Whyteladyes Lane, field to the west of
The site behind the terraced row of houses shows apparent aerial photographic evidence of archaeology in cropmarks, and though not to have been investigated.
This area is not shown as occupied by buildings on maps covering c1760-1900, which suggests that the features may be of earlier origin.
It is immediately north of a former copse called Windmill Shaw.
Previously known as Maidenhead Lane, Whyteladyes Lane is a road of some antiquity, known to have been a route from the south to Winter Hill, via Bradcutts Lane, which was significant in the later medieval period for the manorial courts held there.
This may also have been part of an extension of one of the Roman period roads leading to Winter Hill from around Cannon Down. (See heading: Alderman Silver’s Road). It may even date back as far as the Bronze Age, leading towards a probable settlement of that period close to Hill Grove Farm.
Whyteladyes Lane
Old Waterworks site. A paved track uncovered under this site in 1905, investigated by Darby, is believed to be Roman. It led SW towards a copse called Windmill Shaw. Close to the copse were four round or oval pits of considerable age, which appeared to Darby to have been dug for some particular purpose.
*Cannon Court Farm and Hindhay Farm
Cannon Court was an ecclesiastical estate before the Reformation, part of the holdings of Cirencester Abbey, granted by Henry I. There are records of a manor house at Cannon Court dating from the early Norman period (probably c1120s), the site of which has never been identified. It possibly stood close behind the present-day farmhouse and would be worthy of archaeological investigation. The estate of Cannon Court covered a wide area of Cookham, with the northern border at the present Lower Road.
There is much evidence of archaeology in the fields between and around both farms, through cropmarks and Lidar, and there is also evidence of Bronze Age occupation.
**Long Lane and Cannon Down
There is hedgerow dating evidence of a settlement close to the junction of Long Lane with Spring Lane. Darby believed that, on the slopes of the hill, there may have been a Roman vineyard. The east end of the lane, at Cannon Down, close to Strande Lane, and the Strande Lane/Strande Park area and adjacent fields, is an important area of Romano-British interest.
Alderman Silver’s Road - and other supposedly Roman roads
In recent years, research on roads has suggested that many a road long believed to be Roman is in fact a good deal earlier, although probably improved and used by the Romans.
Alderman Richard Silver, a C19 Mayor of Maidenhead, was interested in a supposedly Roman road which was said to be first visible at Braywick, running through central Maidenhead (it is marked on C19 OS maps, crossing Kidwells Park) and on through North Town and Cookham.
There have been discussions as to where it went on leaving the Furze Platt area, based on differing evidence in Darby’s and Kerry’s accounts, but it is possible that the direction split into two in Cookham, either just beyond North Town or somewhere in the area of Cannon Down, around the bottom (east) end of Long Lane. A branch of the road may have continued on towards Winter Hill, but the popular belief is that the road continued over the area of Alfred Major Recreation Ground towards Cockmarsh and crossed the Thames there, leading in the direction of the important Roman villa at Wycombe.
There has been much speculation about the existence of another supposed Roman road known as Camlet Way, recorded as running between Silchester and St Albans, which would have crossed diagonally through Cookham. There has been evidence of such a road in Bucks, where a Roman road lens was seen by an experienced Roman researcher at an appropriate point near Beaconsfield, crossing the line of the M40 when it was under construction.
The same researcher discovered further possible evidence in the Pinkney’s Green area and beyond, but Cookham fields have been too heavily ploughed to find clues here.
To follow the line of the existing clues, it seems very likely that this road would have crossed the Thames either near the present Cookham Bridge or below that point in the area of Sashes Island.
What is especially interesting is that the Camlet Way would have been likely to have diagonally crossed Alderman Silver’s Road in the general area of Cannon Down and the waterworks, and run in a south westerly direction through the lands of Cannon Court towards Pinkneys Green and beyond. This potential crossing area has been agreed through separate investigations by at least four local researchers and builds a fairly positive indication of Roman activity in the area between Strande Lane and the waterworks in Whyteladyes Lane, making further archaeological investigation there extremely important, and essential before any potential building development.
Addendum
The current archaeological investigation of Church Paddock is an example of the caution and care that needs to be taken to protect potential archaeological sites in Cookham.
There was a threat of building development on the Church Paddock site a few years ago which, thankfully, was avoided. Had that occurred, the complete archaeological site and evidence of the minster might have been destroyed, and this unique opportunity to explore and document Cookham’s early medieval history to have been lost.
Not only is the discovery of an early Saxon monastic settlement extremely rare, but the condition of the site is exceptional by national archaeological standards. Much of the ground has been barely disturbed in over a thousand years and it is therefore revealing artefacts and features that are perfectly in context.
Bibliography
There are references here to:
Darby, Stephen: Chapters in the History of Cookham, 1909
Kerry, Revd. Charles: The History and Antiquities of the Hundred of Bray, in the County of Berks, 1861
Note: Much of the information on individual sites was produced for Cookham Parish Council in February 2021 by Marlow Archaeological Society, now succeeded and updated by Marlow Archaeology Group.
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