Maidenhead Bridge

The first bridge was built of wood in 1280 in what was then the hamlet of South Ellington. The Great West Road to Reading, Gloucester and Bristol was diverted over the new bridge – previously it kept to the north bank crossed the Thames by ford at Cookham – and mediaeval Maidenhead grew up around it. Within a few years a wharf was constructed next to the bridge and the South Ellington name was dropped with the area becoming known as Maidenhythe (literally meaning "new wharf"). The earliest record of this name change is in the Bray Court manorial rolls of 1296. Only a century later the bridge had again fallen into disrepair and during the reign of Henry VI was so unsafe that most travellers…