The town is part of the Royal Borough of
Windsor and Maidenhead. It has a population of around 60,000. The
Maidenhead urban area includes urban and suburban regions within the
bounds of the town, called Maidenhead Court, North Town, Furze Platt,
Pinkneys Green, Highway, Tittle Row, Boyn Hill, Fishery and Bray Wick;
as well as suburbs in surrounding civil parishes: Cox Green and Altwood
in Cox Green parish, Woodlands Park in White Waltham parish, and
Holyport and part of Bray Wick in Bray parish. Bray village itself is
still just about detached.
Maidenhead's name, strictly speaking refers
to the busy riverside area where the 'New wharf' or 'Maiden Hythe' was
built, perhaps as early as Saxon times. It has been suggested that the
nearby Great Hill of Taplow was called the 'Mai Dun' by the Iron Age
Brythons. The area of the town centre was originally known as 'South
Ellington' and is recorded in the Domesday Book as Ellington in the
hundred of Beynhurst.
In 1280, a bridge was erected across the river to replace the ferry and
the Great Western Road was diverted in order to make use of it. This led
to the growth of Maidenhead: a stopping point for coaches on the
journeys between London and Bath and the High Street became populated
with inns. The current Maidenhead Bridge, a local landmark, dates from
1777 and was built at a cost of £19,000.
King Charles I met his children for the last time before his execution
in 1649 at the Greyhound Inn, which is now a branch of the NatWest Bank.
A plaque commemorates their meeting.
A significant river resort in the 19th century, Maidenhead was notably
ridiculed in Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome: