Cock Marsh

Cock Marsh is one of the Maidenhead and Cookham Commons, originally part of the Royal Manor of Cookham, which was sold to private owners in 1818. The Maidenhead and Cookham Commons Conservation Committee was established in the 1920s to raise £2,800 to buy the land, equivalent to about £158,000 as at 2025,^[a]Calculated using the retail price index.^[1] which they donated to the National Trust in 1934.^[2]

Situated to the north of Maidenhead, in Berkshire, the 18.6-hectare (46 acres) marsh is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest. The entire area is grazed by cattle and horses and locally by rabbits, producing a short sward interspersed with patches of hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) scrub and mature deciduous trees on the hillside. The calcareous grassland on a steep north-facing slope gives way to more acidic grassland on clay at the top of the slope. There are several ponds, and the site is subject to periodic flooding and drying out, which helps to maintain its botanic richness.^[3] The marsh is locally important for breeding and wintering birds.^[3]

Flora and fauna

The marshy grasslands and the four silted pools support an abundant and diverse plant community, including water violet (Hottonia palustris), marsh arrowgrass (Triglochin palustris), marsh stitchwort (Stellaria palustris), lesser persicaria (Polygonum minus), marsh pennywort (Hydrocotyle vulgaris) and water hemlock (Oenanthe aquatica).^[3]

The marsh is also locally important for breeding and wintering birds.^[3]

Round barrow cemetery

Round barrow cemeteries date to the Bronze Age (c. 2000 – 700 BCE) . The Cock Marsh round barrow cemetery is of particular importance because it has survived well despite partial excavation between 1874 and 1877. It comprises four bowl barrowsSimple type of burial mound consisting of a mound of turf, earth and deposited bedrock over a central primary burial., all of which survive as earthworks.^[4] When first created, the largest was 90 feet (27 m) in diameter and about 8 feet (2 m) tall; excavations in 1874 found the remains of a woman accompanied by what was left of a funeral feast in that mound, and one of the smaller barrows contained the remains of a child.^[2] Other finds included a cremation burial in a stone cistPrehistoric chamber used to contain the bodies of the dead., flint tools, pottery and animal bones, along with a later Saxon inhumation in one of the mounds.^[4]