Berkshire hotels collection

Maidenhead owes Brunel two brick arches thrown across the Thames, so flat that the railway company insisted the timber centring be left in place; Brunel lowered it a fraction, and when the weather carried it away, the bridge stood on its own. Cookham gathers its houses near a cast-iron bridge; its church, of flint diapered with chalk, keeps to the riverbank. On the downs at Lambourn, flint-strewn chalk carries a short turf that dries quickly; the racehorses gallop up it at first light, in single file.