Maidenhead and Cookham Commons

Maidenhead and Cookham Commons are a patchwork of around 500 acres of grassland and 340 acres of woodland, once part of the Royal Manor of Cookham and kept open by villagers who resisted enclosure. Cookham Moor, crossed by the 1929 Fleet Bridge and painted by Stanley Spencer, leads to riverside walks to Cock Marsh, where four Bronze Age burial mounds sit in chalk grassland with orchids and the endangered brown galingale. Winter Hill looks out over the river, the woods of Cookham Dean inspired Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows, and Maidenhead Thicket, once a haunt of highwaymen, hides the Iron Age earthworks of Robin Hood's Arbour. Reviewers value the open moor and river paths. Dogs are welcome across the commons on a short lead because of grazing cattle and ground-nesting birds. National Trust trails start from Cookham Moor, Cookham Dean and Pinkneys Drive. There are no toilets on the commons; public ones are behind the Stanley Spencer Gallery.