Datchet, Buckinghamshire

Description
Datchet or Datchet St Helen's, a parish in Bucks, on the river Thames and on the Windsor branch of the L. & S.W.R., 2 miles E of Windsor. It has a station on the railway, and a post, money order, and telegraph office under Windsor. Acreage, 1387; population, 1582. Two bridges, called the Victoria and the Albert, the former a neat iron structure, give communication across the Thames. Datchet Mead was the scene of Falstaff's punishment in the " Merry Wives of Windsor" A fishing-house of Sir H. Wotton, called " Black Pots," yearly visited by Isaak Walton, stood on the Thames at Datchet, and was succeeded by a summer-house of the painter Verrio. Anglers from old times till the present have loved to fish here, and Pope says respecting Charles II.£" Methinks I see our mighty monarch stand, The pliant rod now trembling in his hand; And see, he now doth up from Datchet come, Laden with spoils of slaughter'd gudgeons home." The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Oxford; net yearly value, £288 with residence. Patrons, the Dean and Canons <9f Windsor. The church was rebuilt in 1860, and is in the Decorated style. There are a Baptist chapel, a working men's club, opened in 1881 and enlarged in 1888, and some useful charities.