Burnham, Buckinghamshire

Burnham is a large village and civil parish that lies north of the River Thames in southern Buckinghamshire, between the towns of Maidenhead and Slough, about 24 miles west of Charing Cross, London. It is probably best known for the nearby Burnham Beeches woodland.

The village is served by Burnham railway station on the main line between London Paddington and Reading. The M4 motorway passes through the south of the parish.

The toponym is derived from the Old English for "homestead on a stream". It was first recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Burneham, when the manor was held by Walter FitzOther.

Burnham was once a very important village. The Great West Road from London to Bath passed through the extensive parish of Burnham and as a result, in 1271, a Royal charter was granted to hold a market and an annual fair. However, when the first Maidenhead Bridge crossing the Thames opened c.1280, the road was diverted to the south of Burnham (the route of the modern A4), and Burnham fell into relative decline. The market was then transferred to Maidenhead.

Today the village is nearly contiguous with west Slough, though green-buffered by parkland. At the 2011 census the civil parish had a population of 11,630 and Burnham is the traditional village nucleus.

The Church of England parish church of Saint Peter dates in part from the 12th century but has been substantially expanded, refurbished and altered, with major restorations in 1863–64 and 1891 and the construction of the Cornerstone Centre in 1986.

In 1265 a Benedictine women's abbey was founded near the village by Richard, Earl of Cornwall. The community was dispersed under King Henry VIII in the dissolution of the monasteries. Since 1916, a contemplative order of Church of England Augustinian nuns has been based in the restored remains of the original abbey. The abbey is now up for sale at a price of around £3 million.

The parish of Burnham included a number of communities: in the 18th century the liberties assessed for the poor rate were Burnham Town, East Burnham, Boveney, Britwell, Cippenham and Wood. Boveney became a separate civil parish in 1866 Cippenham was transferred to Slough in 1930, and therefore became part of Berkshire in 1974. Britwell was transferred to the borough of Slough and to Berkshire in 1974.