Maidenhead began its existence as a sleepy hamlet called South Aylington, three-quarters of a mile from the river, above the winter floods. It sprang to life in the 13th century when the first wooden bridge was built across the Thames, putting the place firmly on the map as a staging post on the road from London to Bristol, later called the Bath Road. A causeway was built from the bridge to the village, which became Bridge Road, and by 1297 a new wharf on the river, alongside the bridge, changed the name of the place to Maidenhythe. Tolls were charged for crossing the bridge, until as recently as 1903, adding to the income of the little town that grew as inns, stables, alehouses and smithies sprang up to serve the growing demand from travellers.

By 1582, where Queen Elizabeth granted its first charter, the town was well established and prosperous. By the 18th century stage coaches had made it one of the busiest towns on the Bath Road, with 90 coaches a day passing through, a large area of the town devoted to coaching inns and no less than four breweries to quench the thirst of passengers and coachmen. Disaster threatened in 1838 when Brunel's railway put an end to the coaching and made almost the entire population redundant, including the footpads in Maidenhead Thicket. But almost immediately London commuters moved in, now able to live in a rural area within easy reach of the capital. They were middle class and they attracted entrepreneurs who bought up town centre properties for shops and businesses. The population almost quadrupled in the first three years after the railway opened!

Fortunately the camera was invented in time to record much of the old coaching town before it was submerged beneath the tide of Victorian shops, villas, churches and schools. From the excellent photographic archive that survives, Luke Over, who has studied Maidenhead history for some thirty-five years, has made a superb selection, each carefully captioned, giving great visual appeal to this account of the town.

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