Remember When: Marvellous machines at Knowl Hill Steam Rally

This week's Remember When looks back at popular summer events, including the Knowl Hill Steam Rally and Maidenhead Regatta.

James Preston

jamesp@baylismedia.co.uk

05:00PM, Friday 15 August 2025

1980: The brickworks at Pinkneys Green, where Maidenhead Brick and Tile Company once employed 80 men, were being demolished.

The works had been idle since 1968, when the tile company moved its operations to Brighton.


1985: Ten children living in Camperdown Road in Maidenhead created their own museum, and invited all their friends and neighbours.

Exhibits included stamps, dolls, shells, pressed flowers, coins, models, badges, stickers and rubbers.

The museum raised £9.02, which was sent to Live Aid.


1990: Maidenhead Regatta, held in perfect conditions, provided some of the best racing for many years.

There was a dead heat, verdicts of one and two feet and, in many of the races, the crews were overlapping at the finish.


1995: The anniversary of VJ Day was marked in Badgers Close, Maidenhead, with a street party.

Children waved flags and enjoyed sandwiches and jelly as their peers may have done in similar scenes 50 years before.


1995: Robin Hoods and multiple Maid Marians took centre stage in the village as Cookham Dean Nursery School laid on its summertime-themed picnics.

The gardens at Tythe Barn, in Dean Lane, were transformed into Sherwood Forest, complete with a castle, for two Robin Hood afternoons.


2000: Furious residents who said emergency services cannot get near their homes because of selfish parking by commuters looked set to win their long-running campaign to kick them out.

More than 100 Courtlands residents called for residents-only parking in their close at a public meeting.

They blamed commuters who left their cars in the road before taking the train to work for their parking problems.


2000: Legendary leviathans and beautiful behemoths took thousands of visitors on a trip back to the historic age of steam in Knowl Hill.

Traction engines took centre stage for the annual steam rally, with living displays of the dominance these industrial dinosaurs enjoyed a century before.

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