The Knowhere Guide

Best and Worst in Maidenhead, Berkshire*

Maidenhead, Berkshire Triumphs and Tragedies

Favourite Building

• None really but the new sainsburys they are builing should be nice.
• the clock (even though its hardly a building)
• magnet leisure centre when its cold or raining
• next to the bridge on the a4 the derelict house that could have been saved if riverside land wasn't worth so much
• UCI Cinnema
• Canadian Red Cross Memorial Hospital
• The Old Maidenhead Town Hall Never should have been demolished used to stand top of Market St Junct High St right were the police man used to be on point duty (before traffic Lights)
• The library is quite nice.
• Texaco Garage
• Town Hall. It was used as the front of the hospital in the Carry On films. Me and my mate Spider were arrested for climbing onto the roof when we were pissed five years ago.
• Chicargoes, not a reebok classic in sight!
• Well, there's the good old town hall, featured in many a Carry On film
• The library (mmmmm only 14.)
• There really aren't any building that you could look at and proudly say "that's my fave building".

Demolish It Now Building

• the old cinema, pointless mingin waste of space.
• the offices near where sainsburys was.
• The last time I saw the statue of the boy at the top of the high street, there was nothing left but its feet, stained blood red as some townie had smashed it in. at least they're good for some things eh?
• tenpin - then i could do something decent on a saturday instead of watching my mates spend all their money on dancemats
• the high street. build it again like they planned to!
• SAINSBURYS AND WAITROSE IN MAIDENHEAD NEED TO BE MODERNISED.
• the old bus station and old factorys to make in door sk8parks
• any of the cloned unimaginative uninspired chain store architecture of michael shanley
• Berkshire house (the big tall one in the town centre).
• I hear that the Town Hall is on its way out (September 2002, still a rumour currently).
• The new flats on Frascati Rd, with the tennants inside, constantly blairing out crap music, like they got some stereo speakers for Christmas. Their female guests seem to think flashing their boobs to the passing traffic is hilarious. Also Evenlode, does anyone actually want to live there?????????
• I wait in living hope for the day that Chicago Rock Cafe is struck down by lightning.....TWICE.... with every caked up wannabe porn actress and every beamer driving wide boy in it and the bouncers are as rude as hell not like the nice lads down at the bear! Talking of bouncers whatever happened to Chad and Andy from the Goblin.
• I think every thing of Old Maidenhead is gone
• Most of the high street.
• Oh there r so many. On top of my list though would have to be the superbowl. Most annoying place on earth populated by the rejects of maidenhead. It has a really weird smell too!
• Claires Court School
• Not just one building, but the scores of office blocks we have. All look the same (ugly) and the vast majority are empty, with no hope of ever being filled. Yet there are still plans for more every week in the local rag.
• The Bell Pub - with its patrons still inside.
• Mc Donalds, so there is no place to hang out for the rude boys and girls
• The whole of Queen Street
• The 'Jolly Green Giant' next to the station.
• All the multi storey car parks
• No building, but the horrendous statue at the top of the High street must go, It's evil.
• Most of the unsightly offices that keep popping up around the town. Although, if the millenium dome was in Maidenhead then I'd choose that!
• The cinema that isn't a cinema but a wreck needs to be demolished. We would like a cinema. Why do we have to travel to High Wycombe, or God help us Slough?

The Best Things

• Hot women.
• The river looks very pretty sometimes.
• Sunny days at the skatepark
• Camilla Horwood
• It's not Slough (so you don't get shot or mugged as easily), it's not Wycombe (so you don't get stabbed, get whores coming on to you, or injected with heroin so easily) It's not Bracknell (so doesn't have the worst architecture in Britain or a high population of teenage mothers holding prams and fags at the same time). Maidenhead is more middle class than some of its neighbours!
• Amy lives there
• getting drunk with mates and also just pissing about
• roof roof roof
• The shops look really nice
• shutting my front door and locking the weirdos out
• The Newt Rock Venue
• We're not Slough. Or Bracknell. And we're close enough to London for a decent Friday night, but just far enough away to survive the worst of a nuclear bomb.
• Berkshires Premiere Live music event! "New Rock Fallacy" featuring Rage DC, Jecano, Blind II Reality, Sextodecimo and Method.One all play live @ Newt & Cucumber, 2 Bridge Street, Maidenhead on Thursday 19th September. National magazine present at the event. Doors at 7:00pm. Finishes midnight. Not to be missed!
• Taking a walk along the 'Greenway' which runs from Cookham to Braywick park. Total peace and quiet, and beautiful.
• SKATE PARK AND PUSH
• Canadian Red Cross Memorial Hospital
• Why pay for an expensive all inclusive air ticket to New Delhi, when you can have the delights of India at your very own doorstep, free of charge. The ultimate holiday experience can be found in the capital, Claire Road. The essence of curry fills the air and you can't miss a flying turban!!
• Trains departing Maidenhead are reliable.
• the best thing about maidenhead is the lack of human interest in the town, you could be living in squalor on class A drugs and nobody would blink an eyelid
• Before the Bypass came through the town You could walk around the Streets in safety The Maidenhead Moor where one could walk through the Wild flowers in spring Maidenhead Thicket Before the Motorway Fishing Cookham or Windsor Towpath
• good schools.
• PWURG
• Not overcrowded on a Friday or Saturday night, however this can be a bit disconcerting if you are not used to it!
• Maidenhead is a wonderful town don't be put off by all the snobs moaning about irrelevent things it has alot of history and interesting places. I wouldn't leave my home town if someone paid me.
• Fit skater girls.
• Only on a rare occasion does this happen, but as you stroll along the high street trying to dodge the broken paving slabs a well dressed, good looking guy passes you. This gives the girls of M'head a little bit of hope and motivates them not to turn and run away from the town as fast as they possible can.
• The River makes it berable, otherwise we'd be long gone!
• All roads leading out of it (just don't turn back)
• My folks live there, as do a sizeable amount of my friends. Oh, and the riverside's nice when it isn't full of tourists and shirtboys/wiggers.
• What! this is Maidenhead, Suburban hell!
• There are more Scottish, Irish and Welsh than anywhere else in England!!!!
• Italian Continental Stores is the most interesting food store, and also sells an extremely wide range of alcohol too.
• The Stag and Hounds, The harp, and The Jack (now it has table football).
• Now you're asking! I've lived here all my life (20 years) and this is a tough question. If you visit some of the pubs regularly enough, the bar staff will chat to you and be friendly. You become a local yocal! The town centre is reasonably small so it's not to far to walk between pubs.
• Summer Evenings outside, Boulters Inn, Thames Hotel, and Riviera, watching the passing boats and generally chilling out.
• The Conca d'Ora Italian restaurant is just the best restaurant in town - the best food, the best staff.
• Loads of local skaters
• At least it's not Slough.
• London's West End is only half an hour down the road.
• You can get to Reading on the train for Alley Cats or The After Dark club without having to pay for a ticket - they never check! (I wouldn't do it myself of course!)
• Winter Hill is not in Maidenhead, it's in the village of Cookham Dean. Bloody town's getting to close to the village as it is without giving bits away!
• Motorola Computers UK are based there (long live the PowerPC) It's got a place called Winter Hill where everyone who wants a shag with their other half (in the car) - me included - goes.
• Not one but two Chocolate Shops: Thorntons and a Truffle shop.
• Walking down the river when there's no-one around. Cliveden country house is near by. Good for more of the above
• You can be in the countryside in about two minutes.
• Only 25 miles from central London.
• Situated on the Cliveden Reach, the most beautiful stretch of the Thames.

The Worst Things

• CHAV'S
• The disgusting townies. Cannot stand the amount of chavs living in places like Ellington park, evenlode etc. All dress and act the same and the ever pregnat teens just won't stop multiplying their Beyonces and Rios. Make it end! On the other of the spectrum we have middle age ladies who wish that they were posh but aren't and are totally up themselves. Oh and the yuppies.
• security
• The distgustingly overpriced houses.
• The rising community of criminals
• no ones ever heard of it, its boring, there are no decent shops, too many rudies
• It's a bit quiet on Sunday but the more people who go the better the town gets.
• TOWNIES,TRENDIES AND THE CRIME ITS TERRBILE LIB DEMS NEED TO CRACK DOWN ON IT
• Of all the places I've lived in this country, Maidenhead is clearly, unutterably the worst. It's a real shame actually, because it's situation gives it so much potential to be a nice, well-located town. Instead it just seems to be populated by barely-literate (see local's comments above!), violent degenerates whose only pleasure in life is to get mashed on various cheap beverages and class Bs, and then smash up people's property for fun. And then have a fight with someone just for good measure. Having just bought a flat in this dismal little suicide-hole I feel I'm justified in telling you the sorry truth! Locals, you really, really don't know what you're missing - life can be SO MUCH better than this - but many will never come to realise this because people seem scared to move away... Tragic town, tragic life.
• I never gettime to go in to them. Parking, parking is really bad.
• to numerous to mention but i speak with the contempt of one born here like anywhere else it would have the chance to be a nice town if it wasn't for the arseholes like that place lalaland
• Too close to Slough. Slough postcode. Bracknell's only 20mins away. No decent nightlife, women all think they're it, blokes all think the same. Nobody under 30 can afford to buy a flat here, because there's more police in tiny maidenhead than in big Reading, they can tend to have a go over little things like "you were driving slightly fast" - meaning 42 in a 40 zone. At midnight.
• Maidenhead at night, I thought we were wild but this lot are out of control.
• SCHOOL
• Massive drug problem.Something in the water makes the middle class population of this town act like they were brought up in LA.
• Too many Mobile phone shops - the link, carphone warehouse, vodaphone, orange, phone2u and several others I can't remember! People winging about not having a department store - get over it already!
• Nicholsons walk Floods when the water came with in feet of the Old Town HAll
• this town is shit! nothing to do- no decent (well hardly- except or the exception of H.E. and T.S.)shops, and no where that will employ me!(yr 2001)
• I personally think the Worst thing about this town is it's residents. All you do is moan about the kids theres alot more to Maidenhead than the Little things you've chose to moan about!!! I'm Pregnant and like "all the other young girls" I'm young, 21, so when you see me pushing my Pram are you gonna judge me because guess what although I'm young I was Married before I was Pregnant and we own our own home. If you dislike the People, buildings, kids, pubs and everything else of Maidenhead so much why don't you move then Maybe this town might start getting better you see if the Adult generation don't like and respect there town how can you expect the children to???
• I personally think the worst thing is the people that have come on this site and put there home town down. For example moaning about the kids outside McDonalds where else have they to go they should moan to the council about the lack of Youth Clubs if it bothers them that much. I think most of the people in Maidenhead these days have turned into complete snobs. The town is a wonderful town I say this because it's my home and I'm not ashamed of where I come from it's a shame most people here sound like they are!!!
• Ugly metaller girls. The genral lack of talent or anything much to do. Townie gangs.
• everyone being so bloody arrogant and rude, all the pregnant teenagers wandering around with fags in their mouths as they chase after their 2 other children, all the men thinking they're gods gift, IN GENERAL being a shitty town with nothing to do!
• Being so close to Slough.
• Minors under the influence. The sale of wine gums should be licensed in this town
• Everything and everyone else.
• rude boys and girls from the lovely estates. I dont mean to be stereotypical cause i live there as well! The typical male= short highly geld forward hair, single large Argos gold ear ring, Reebok classics, black drain pipes,is usually called Trevor, Kevin or Dave. Large attitudes, small brain cells. Potential job= builder. The typical girl= badly permed bleached hair, very greasy tyed back. Seven gold Argos earings in each ear. Kappa tracksuit top with black leggings and Reebok classics. Usually pushing a pram with child.
• Absolutely nowhere to buy a decent pair of headphones
• Maidenhead is too big to be a pretty little village or town like cookham or marlow etc etc but is too small to keep anyone interested for more than 3 minutes - hence the fact that Mcdonalds is THE nightspot. I've heard there's a cinema on the way though....
• Chicago rock cafe, The Bear (Bottled lager, Ralph Lauren "uniform", awful DJ.
• Some of the younger people have real attitude problems, sort it out! We need a decent nighclub. I tend to venture in to Reading or London if I want a good night out.
• Tourists
• Loads of quaders, bladers and thousands and thousands of townies
• Slough. Say no more.
• Too close to London, therefore a dull, boring shitheap.
• There's a few bad attitudes around.
• Town constantly flooded by AA/RAC sales people.
• Hawkeye traffic wardens.
• An abundance of twats who drive Volvos and think they are middle class!
• Slough is only three miles down the road.
• Zoots club. Tourists coming to Boulter's Lock to watch the water rise and fall endlessly.
• Far too many kids with bad attitudes.. .(I am sure I wasn't like that)
• Most have been said already. The town centre is known as the 'arsehole of Berkshire' basically due to the fact that it is so shit. Minimal High Street chains, one cheesy club and a handful of pubs with an average drinking age of about 14. Kids with attitude everywhere looking for a scrap, plus trainloads of mutants from Marlow and Sarajevo, sorry Slough (an easy comparison to make) N.B. To avoid being kicked shitless at night, by-pass 'the bench' outside McDonalds!

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Last updated: 2007-07-16