Welcome

Welcome to the Taplow website! This is a jumping-off point for all sorts of information about Taplow Village. Come in and look around.

A Walk Around Taplow A virtual-reality tour of Taplow, with clickable maps and hundreds of photographs. NEW: updated maps, and Marsh Lane is now fully covered.

Race to the Church 29th April 2011, Taplow High Street. To your vehicles! The race is on!

Hitcham and Taplow Society The Society has a website with news, information, and a forum for people to "have their say" about the local area.

Taplow Artists Network This is a showcase for artists who live or work in the Taplow area. A wide range of work is on show, from watercolours to sculpture and from acrylics to digital photographs.

Current local issues

Skindles and the Paper Mill

The St Regis company, which owned Skindles and the Mill, sold the entire site to a property company called Watchword. The mill closed in late 2006, and some parts have now been demolished.

The site covers approximately 48 acres and comprises the Mill, the former Skindles Hotel, Windrush Garage (on a lease) and the Severnside Recycling Depot, as well as large areas of open space.

The new owners submitted a planning application in April 2009 and went bust soon afterwards. The plan was to build a large new hotel on the Skindles site, 28 live/work units with a supporting office hub, and 152 dwellings (mostly apartments).

In June 2011 a new consortium mounted an exhibition at the Mill to gather feedback on their new outline proposals. The plans presented were very sketchy - much less detail than the previous proposals.

The Hitcham and Taplow Society is watching the process keenly. There is now a Mill Lane Planning Proposals page on the Society website, containing the Society's initial reaction and a number of background documents.

Bishop Centre

A proposal surfaced in June 2011 to knock down everything at the Bishop Centre and build a big Tesco supermarket. Later information suggests that there could be 11 other units as well.

Parts of the site are certainly looking a bit run-down, but we really do not need another out-of-town supermarket.

Pictorial websites

• Buckinghamshire Photographs collected by the County Council
• There are a few Taplow pictures in Buckinghamshire Town and Village Photographs
• The English Heritage Viewfinder site has many pictures of the Taplow area (mostly from the Henry W Taunt Collection, which includes a lot of images of Cliveden)

Landmarks

• All of the Listed Buildings in Taplow are mapped by the British Listed Buildings website.
• Taplow Court, once the home of Lord and Lady Desborough, has been beautifully restored and is now the Headquarters of SGI UK - a lay Buddhist organisation.
• Current Archaeology has an article on the Saxon burial and iron age hillfort at Taplow Court. A number of the artefacts found when the burial mound was excavated are now in the British Museum: search for Taplow in the Compass database
• Cliveden - home of Nancy, Lady Astor, is the largest National Trust property in the Taplow area. Most of the house itself is now used as a hotel
• The Canadian Red Cross Memorial Hospital Shrine - a most unusual website dedicated to the remnants of the old hospital that was enclosed in the grounds of Cliveden. There is also some information on Dropmore and Taplow Lodge. The hospital site is being developed with 135 luxury houses for the over-55s, though the credit crunch seems to have caused a pause in the bulding programme. About half of the planned houses seem to have been built and occupied so far.
• Nashdom House was designed by Edwin Lutyens for Princess Dolgorouki, and was later used as an abbey. After standing empty for several years it was refurbished and converted into apartments.
• Wickenden house and vineyard were re-built in the style of Lutyens in the 1990s.
• The River Thames is an important part of the landscape around Taplow. The Environment Agency's Visit Thames website has a lot of information to help you make the most of the river and its surroundings.
• The Environment Agency has a website describing the Jubilee River - originally known as the Maidenhead, Windsor and Eton Flood Alleviation Scheme (MWEFAS). Unfortunately they keep moving the pages around so you will have to start at their home page and search for it.

Local Government

• Taplow Parish Council can be contacted by e-mail: taplow.pc@googlemail.com
• A list of current planning applications in the area can be found on the South Bucks Planning page along with much useful advice on building, extending, and modifying houses. Another good source of advice on building issues is the Secured By Design site.
• The membership of Taplow Parish Council (and other nearby councils) is listed on the South Bucks District Council website.
• Taplow boasts several Conservation Areas, including The Taplow Riverside Conservation Area and the Taplow Village Conservation Area.
• The Environment Agency has maps showing all sorts of interesting information. For example, a map showing which parts of Taplow are at risk of flooding

Nearby towns and villages

• Walking about in downtown Maidenhead - a photographic tour of Maidenhead, which is just across the river from Taplow. (Note that the original site has disappeared, so this is a link to an archived copy on the Wayback Machine). maidenhead.net also includes a photographic tour of Maidenhead.
• Burnham is the next settlement to the East of Taplow. It still has a busy High Street, whereas Taplow's High Street has not had any shops for many years. Burnham Parish Council have a comprehensive website, and Burnham also has its own community website maintained by the Burnham Health Promotion Trust, with lots of information and links.
• Bray is the next village south of Taplow.
• Slough is the nearest large town to the east of Taplow.

Recreation

• Local artist Annick McKenzie has established a website to show her very colourful work.
• A list of books relating to Buckinghamshire including several covering Taplow.
• Maidenhead Rowing Club moved across the river a few years ago and now have a clubhouse in Taplow Riverside. Their webcam takes regular pictures of the River Thames just downstream from Maidenhead Bridge.
• Maidenhead Operatic Society rehearse every Thursday evening in Taplow Village Hall.
• Maidenhead Camera Club has several Taplow-based members.
• Thames Valley Adventure Playground provides adventurous, therapeutic and educational play activities for both children and adults with all types of disability.
• The South Bucks Bridge Centre is based in a restored barn in Burnham: it runs courses and club nights where you can learn to play Bridge and improve your game.
• Matt Collins teaches two martial arts classes in the Taplow Village Centre on Mondays. The first class is from 3:30pm to 4:15pm and is called Little Samurai for children aged 4 to 6. The second call is called Young Samurai and is for children aged 7 to 12.
• The renowned Taplow Choirs are run by Gillian Dibden.
• Julie Zoom runs Zoom Zoom Zoom, a music class for pre-school children at the Reading Room in Taplow Village Hall from 2pm until 3pm on Fridays.

Schools and charities

• OFSTED school inspection report for St Nicolas School in Taplow.

Taplow Business

• Self-catering accommodation is available in Hitchambury Manor.
• SGT are a family-owned motor dealer for sports and specialist cars, trading under the banner "SGT We sell freedom"
• Just Outdoor Toys supply trampolines, climbing frames, paddling pools, go-karts, swings, sandpits etc.
• Skills 1st Ltd is a consultancy specialising in systems and network management and directory services.
• Windrush is the local Volkswagen retailer and luxury car specialist, accepts any make in part-exchange, can arrange finance and offers a full after-sales service.
• Knight Architects design simple, beautiful bridges and buildings.

Other sites

• Villages Online has pointers to hundreds of UK village websites
• UK Photos has pictures from all over the UK
• A list of books on Buckinghamshire
• The Maidenhead Advertiser has a section covering Burnham, Taplow, and Dorney
• Cedar Chase is a group of 24 houses built in 1966 by Span Developments.
• More Taplow links from the DMOZ directory

Andrew Findlay
andrew@findlay.org