MAIDENHEAD THICKET 129 



XXII 



The " Bear " was the principal inn at Maidenhead 

 in the coaching era, and owed much of its prosperity 

 to the unwillingness of travellers who carried con- 

 siderable sums of money with them to cross Maiden- 

 head Thicket at night. They slept peacefully at the 

 " Bear," and resumed the roads in the morning, when 

 the highwaymen were in hiding. 



Maidenhead Thicket is really a long avenue lining 

 the highway two miles from that town. It is a 

 beautiful and romantic place, but its beauties were 

 not apparent to travellers in days of old. The sinister 

 reputation of the spot goes back for hundreds of 

 years, and may be said to have arisen from the time 

 of the Dissolution of the Monasteries, when Keadino- 

 Abbey was despoiled. To that Abbey had resorted 

 many hundreds of poor, certain of finding relief at its 

 gates, and when its hospitality had become a thing of 

 the past, these dependents simply infested the 

 neighbourhood, and either begged or stole. As a 

 chronicler of that time quaintly said : " There is 

 great stoare of stout vagabonds and maysterless men 

 (able enough for labour) which do great hurt in the 

 country by their idle and naughtie life." In those 

 times the Hundreds were liable for any robberies 

 committed within their boundaries ; and in 1590 the 

 Hundred of Benhurst, in which Maidenhead Thicket 

 is situated, had actually to pay £255 compensation 

 for highway robberies committed here. In fact. 

 Maidenhead Thicket had for a lonor time an unenviable 



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