Pangbourne

Situated at the confluence of the River Pang and the River Thames, the town grew up in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as a fashionable place to live. As a result there are several attractive Victorian and Edwardian villas to be seen, including a row of ornate Victorian houses known as the Seven Deadly Sins. It was here that the author Kenneth Grahame retired, living at Church Cottage opposite the church. Grahame married late in life and it was while living here that he wrote The Wind in the Willows for his son.

Visitors to the town who cross the elegant iron bridge to neighbouring Whitchurch must still pay a toll, though now very small. The right to exact the toll has existed since 1792 and it is one of the very few surviving privately-owned toll bridges. It was at Whitchurch Lock that the characters in Jerome K Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat abandoned their craft, after a series of mishaps, and returned to London.