A Trip to Cookham & Marlow

After my trip to Windsor I decided to have another local day out, so I got a train to a couple of small places I've never properly visited before (driving through somewhere on the way to somewhere else totally doesn't count).

First up: Cookham. Cookham is a little village that's about 10 minutes walk from the local train station, across a bit of land looked after by the National Trust (I always thought they just cared for historic houses, etc, but apparently not!). 

Cookham village is very charming...

... with some nice looking pubs and tea shops. 

 

It's best known as the home of the painter Stanley Spencer. That's the house he grew up in on the left (with the blue plaque).

I've been meaning to visit the Stanley Spencer gallery on Cookham High Street for years - it's great to have finally got around to it! The gallery is small but very nice, with some really interesting audio visual displays as well as (of course) lots of Spencer's paintings and sketches.

It's a lot of fun walking round Cookham and seeing things you recognise from Spencer's paintings...

... like the angel in the churchyard...

... and Cookham bridge.

I had a cuppa while waiting for the next train (there's only one an hour) and then headed to the nearby town of Marlow.

I had planned to go to the tourist information office in Marlow, buy a tourist map of the town and walk around seeing the historical sights (like the house Mary Shelley lived in) but - alas! - it was already closed for the day when I got there. So I just wandered around the town centre for a bit looking in the windows of all the smart shops and restaurants, went down to the river for a bit...

 

 

... then had some food in a nice tea room and managed to just get to the station in time to catch that hour's train home (phew!).