Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for COOKHAM

COOKHAM, a village, a parish, a sub-district, a district, and a hundred in Berks. The village stands on the river Thames, adjacent to the Maidenhead and Wycombe railway, 3 miles N of Maidenhead; has a post office‡ under Maidenhead, a station on the railway, an inn much resorted to by anglers, a wooden bridge across the Thames, a parish church, an endowed school, and an alms-house; was the meeting-place, between 996 and 1, 001, of a gemot, attended by many thanes from Wessex and Mercia; was once a market-town, and still has fairs on 16 May and 11 Oct. The church is early English, with western tower of flint; was restored in 1860; and contains several good brasses, a canopied altar-tomb of 1517, and a fine marble monument by Flaxman to Sir Isaac Bocock. The parish contains also Cookham-Dean village and part of Maidenhead borough. Acres, 6, 509. Real property, £25, 374. Pop., 4, 468. Houses, 832. The property is much subdivided. A skirmish was fought, in the civil wars, at Battle-Mead. A number of Roman swords and javelin-heads was found, in 1830, at Sashes. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Oxford. Value, £480.* Patron, J. Rogers, Esq. The chapelries of Cookham-Dean and Maidenhead are separate benefices. There is a Wesleyan chapel.—The sub-district contains the parishes of Cookham, Bisham, and Hurley. Acres, 13, 126. Pop., 6, 317. Houses, 1, 202. The district comprehends also the sub-district of Bray, containing the parishes of Bray, Shottesbrook, Waltham-St. Lawrence, and White-Waltham. Acres, 29, 588. Poor-rates in 1862, £6, 319. Pop. in 1841, 11, 058; in 1861, 13, 031. Houses, 2, 522. Marriages in 1860, 82; births, 396, - of which 19 were illegitimate; deaths, 219,-of which 61 were at ages under 5 years, and 9 at ages above 85. Marriages in the ten years 1851-60, 797; births, 3, 961; deaths, 2, 259. The places of worship in 1851 were 12 of the Church of England, with 5, 995 sittings; 5 of Independents, with 809 s.; 1 of Quakers, with 120 s.; 6 of Wesleyan Methodists, with 761 s.; 5 of Primitive Methodists, with 306 s.; 2 of Lady Huntingdon's Connexion, with 400 s.; and 1 undefined, with 16 attendants. The schools were 15 public day schools, with 1, 324 scholars; 26 private day schools, with 443 s.; and 24 Sunday schools, with 2, 322 s. -The hundred contains only four parishes. Acres, 9, 716. Pop., 3, 809. Houses, 735.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a village, a parish, a sub-district, a district, and a hundred"   (ADL Feature Type: "populated places")
Administrative units: Cookham CP/AP       Cookham Hundred       Cookham SubD       Maidenhead RegD/PLU       Berkshire AncC
Place: Cookham

Go to the linked place page for a location map, and for access to other historical writing about the place. Pages for linked administrative units may contain historical statistics and information on boundaries.