"Those sweet brooks that ran so fair and clear"

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This talk traces the ebb and flow of the largely overlooked, yet utterly fascinating, history of Cookham’s waterways. From the fragments of its early past – via the prose and poetry it has inspired - to the anecdotes, incidents, and contradictions of these waters and some of the characters who have lived along them, it is a story that never ceases to illuminate and delight.

 

Even in this brief (and admittedly partial) retelling of selected episodes in that history, these streams emerge as both a witness to, and product of, the great changes which have transformed Cookham in the many centuries since our ancestors first buried their dead in the barrows on the floodplain of the mighty Thames.

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Jack grew up in south London on the banks of the River Wandle and has lived by, played in or worked on rivers for most of his life. Having spent the early part of his career as an academic historian, working across the UK, Europe and southern Africa, Jack is now lucky enough to work for South East Rivers Trust developing and delivering river restoration projects across the South East – over the last few years he has been working on a project to enhance (and has quite accidentally become fascinated with) the history of Cookham and its
waterways.