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City & Village Tours: 0845 812 5000 info@cityandvillagetours.com
High above the river behind hanging beech woods
is the house called Cliveden, a massive Italianate
mansion that has been the home of an Earl, three
Countesses, two Dukes, a Prince of Wales and the
Viscounts Astor, to whom Samantha Cameron is
related. Cliveden is now leased by the National Trust
as a hotel but as the home of the first female British
MP Nancy Astor it was the meeting place of the
group of political intellectuals known as the
Cliveden Set. This era, between the two wars, was
the heyday of Cliveden when the Astors entertained
in lavish style with massive weekend house parties
attended by Charlie Chaplin, Winston Churchill,
Lawrence of Arabia, Asquith, Franklin D Roosevelt,
Amy Johnson, Rudyard Kipling, Henry James, Edith
Wharton – even Mahatma Gandhi. During this time
Joyce Grenfell who was Nancy Astor’s niece lived
with her new husband in a cottage on the estate.
But it was down by the river in the Hansel & Gretel
chalet called Spring Cottage rented from Lord Astor
by society osteopath Dr. Stephen Ward, that the
swinging Sixties began with the notorious Profumo
Affair. The Lloyd Webber-Don Black musical opens
this December, fifty years after the scandal. You can
rent incredibly luxurious Spring Cottage (above) for
a holiday for up to six guests for £1,854 to £2,064
per night. VAT and National Trust admission fee
of £10.10 per person unless you are a member!
The gardens are open all year with house tours
available for part of the year. But when you cruise
past the ornate landing stage on the Cliveden riverbank
it is not Profumo that is conjured up but the ghosts of
the
Bright Young Things
tripping in and out of
gleaming Slipper Launches champagne spilling onto
the Lloyd Loom chairs. The Cliveden Reach ends at
Boulter’s Lock, Maidenhead. Edward Gregory’s
painting
Boutler’s Lock, Sunday Afternoon
from the
1890s, all skiffs and crinolines, captures the spirit of a
boom period for messing about on the river. On one
Sunday in 1888 around 800 boats and 72 steam
lunches were recorded passing through the lock.
Edwardian families came for the day, celebrity
spotting, hoping to see the Prince of Wales on his way
to those ornate steps at Cliveden or maybe Oscar
Wilde or Nellie Melba on her Gentleman’s Launch,
Verity. Boulters Lock is still one of the busiest
weekend locks starting with a sort of anti-rush hour
after work on Friday when the flotilla of weekenders
from the marinas at Bray and Windsor make their way
to the popular Mill Marsh Moorings at Cookham.
Ten minutes later the Great Western Railway crosses
the Thames on Isambard Kingdom bridge known as
The Sounding Arch from the almost perfect echo that
can be played with when sailing or walking beneath.
The bridge is the subject of another famous Thames
painting
Rain, Steam and Speed
by JMW Turner,
which hangs in the National Gallery. Between this
bridge and Bray the eye is drawn to the splendid villas
that form a millionaires row housing such folk as
Michael Parkinson and until he
went batty
and called
his jewellry
crap
Gerald Ratner.