Sashes Island

Sashes Island is an island in the River Thames in England at Cookham Lock near Cookham, Berkshire. It is now open farmland, but has Roman and Anglo-Saxon connections.

Upstream tip of Sashes Island between Hedsor Water and the lock cut.
Bridge onto Sashes Island

The island is located between Hedsor Water and the present navigation channel leading to Cookham Lock. It can be reached from Cookham by footbridges across three channels of the River Thames via Formosa Island and Mill Island. Its name is derived from Sceaftesege or "Sceaf’s Isle".[1]

History

The earliest known map of the island was by Hynde, and dates from circa 1580. It shows 'Sashes stream', which cuts the island in half.[2]

The island is believed to have been at the point where the Thames was crossed by a Roman road called Camlet Way, which ran from St. Albans to Silchester. Wooden piles and stakes were found here in the nineteenth century and again in 1969 which may indicate the remains of a substantial bridge. Cookham may derive its name from a river port here named "Cwch-ium", which in the Celtic language means "Boat-Place".[3]

In Saxon times, Sashes Island was the site of a burh built under Alfred the Great as a defence against the Danes. It was listed in the 914 AD Burghal Hidage. The Burghal Hidage reports that the defences of "Sceaftessige" were 4,125ft long. No trace of this burh has been found, but this may be as a result of the digging of the lock cut in the 1830s, which disrupted the terrain. Late Saxon weapons have been found in the cut.[1]

There is a landscape painting of Sashes Island by Gilbert Spencer, brother of Stanley Spencer who was born at Cookham.[4]

gollark: If they want art because it looks nice or they need to advertise something, say, then they'll care less about it being "real art" by humans.
gollark: If people care about art as a status signal or art for some philosophical reason they might want it to be human-made.
gollark: It does seem plausible that AI art might kill off much of commissioned art/graphic design.
gollark: We can assume that the AI runs faster than humans because people will only run training for a few months at most before they get bored and stop.
gollark: Legal action was maybe also bad.

See also

References
  1. "Saxon Defence, Sashes and Cookham Area - Attachment A". Minas Tirith Archaeological Survey. 17 April 2008. Archived from the original on 13 January 2013. Retrieved 16 February 2010.
  2. David Gordon Wilson (1987), The Thames: record of a working waterway, B.T. Batsford, p. 55
  3. "Berkshire History, Cookham".
  4. Historical Cookham
Next island upstream River Thames Next island downstream
Gibraltar Islands Sashes Island Formosa Island

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