Slough, more than you think

Slough is a town the English love to make fun of, but it hides surprising stories. In Berkshire, about thirty kilometres west of central London, just north of Windsor and Eton and a few minutes from Heathrow Airport, it has about 160,000 inhabitants and is one of the most dynamic and multicultural towns in the United Kingdom. Here the astronomer William Herschel built the largest telescope in the world, Queen Victoria made the first train journey by a British monarch, the police caught a murderer by telegraph for the first time, and the Mars bar was born. Today Slough is also one of Europe's largest data centre hubs, the physical heart of part of the Internet. For visitors to London and Windsor it is a practical and cheaper base, linked to the capital by the Elizabeth line.

Fast trains from London Paddington take about a quarter of an hour, and Heathrow Airport is about twenty minutes away.

From mud to railway

The name Slough comes from an Old English word meaning "muddy ground, mire". For centuries it was a small settlement on the Bath road, where coaches changed horses, beside the older villages of Upton and Chalvey. Everything changed in 1840 with the arrival of Brunel's Great Western Railway. Slough station was the nearest to Windsor Castle, and on 13 June 1842 Queen Victoria boarded a train here to London Paddington: it was the first train journey by a British monarch. The trip took about twenty-five minutes, and from then on the queen often used the railway. The station still has its elegant royal waiting room.

In 1845 Slough also made history with a crime. A man named John Tawell poisoned his mistress in a house in the town and fled to London by train, dressed as a Quaker. The Slough stationmaster sent his description to Paddington by the new electric telegraph, just installed along the line, and the police were waiting when he arrived. He was the first criminal arrested thanks to the telegraph, and the case showed the world the importance of the new communications.

William Herschel and the great telescope

In 1781 the German musician and astronomer William Herschel, who lived in Bath, discovered the planet Uranus, the first planet discovered since antiquity. King George III appointed him court astronomer, and Herschel moved near Windsor; in 1786 he settled in Slough, in a house that became famous as Observatory House. In the garden, with his sister Caroline, also an astronomer and discoverer of comets, he built the forty-foot telescope, about twelve metres long, which for half a century was the largest in the world. With it, in 1789, Herschel discovered two new moons of Saturn, Enceladus and Mimas. Visitors came from all over Europe to see the gigantic instrument, supported by a huge wooden scaffold. Herschel's son John Herschel, himself a great astronomer and a pioneer of photography, was born in Slough in 1792.

The house was demolished in the 1960s, but the town remembers the Herschels with Herschel Park, a historic park with lakes and gardens, and with plaques and the names of streets and schools. Part of the original great telescope is preserved in London.

Factory town

After the First World War, on a huge dump of disused military vehicles on the edge of town, the Slough Trading Estate was founded in 1920, one of the first large planned industrial estates in the world and for a long time the largest in Europe under single private ownership. It attracted hundreds of companies and thousands of workers, first from Wales and the north of England, hit by the Depression, and later from all over the Commonwealth. In 1932 the American businessman Forrest Mars opened a small factory here and made the first Mars bar, which became one of the most famous in the world; Mars still has a large base in the town.

Today many of the old factories have given way to data centres: thanks to its closeness to London and its fibre networks, Slough hosts one of the largest clusters of data centres in Europe.

What to see in Slough

Langley church and the Kedermister Library

In the district of Langley, the church of St Mary holds a little-known treasure: the Kedermister Library, a small early 17th-century library with walls entirely painted, cupboards decorated with saints, landscapes and eyes that seem to watch the readers, and hundreds of old books. It is one of very few period parish libraries to have survived intact, and can be visited on certain days of the year.

Upton and the old villages

The village of Upton preserves the Norman church of St Laurence, one of the oldest in the area, and Upton Court, a medieval timber-framed house. In the town centre, St Mary's Church has fine modern stained glass, and The Curve, a curved glass building opened in 2016, houses the library, a theatre and cultural spaces.

Ditton Park and radar

South-east of the town lies Ditton Park, a historic estate where from the 1920s the Radio Research Station studied radio waves and the atmosphere. In the 1930s the team of the Scottish scientist Robert Watson-Watt worked here, carrying out Britain's early research into radar, which proved decisive in the Battle of Britain.

Burnham Beeches and the woods

A few kilometres north-west, Burnham Beeches is an ancient beech wood, many of whose trees are hundreds of years old and twisted into strange shapes by traditional pollarding. It is a National Nature Reserve with paths, ponds and a great variety of fungi and wildlife, and is often used as a set for fantasy films. A little further north, Black Park and the woods around Pinewood Studios, where many James Bond films and other great sagas were shot, have also often been used as film locations.

Slough in popular culture

In 1937 the poet John Betjeman published a very harsh poem about Slough, for him a symbol of the industrial modernity that was wiping out the English countryside, and the town has carried this reputation ever since. In 2001 Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant set the comedy series The Office in Slough, the story of the office of a paper company run by the awkward manager David Brent: the series, later remade in the United States and many other countries, made Slough famous around the world. Residents have learned to smile at this image, and today the town is proud of its energy and diversity.

A world town

Slough is one of the most multicultural towns in the United Kingdom outside London: a large share of its residents have South Asian roots, especially Punjabi, Sikh, Pakistani and Indian, and there are strong Polish, Caribbean, Somali and other communities. The town has Sikh gurdwaras, mosques, Hindu temples and churches of many denominations, and its restaurants and food shops offer cuisines from all over the world. The festivals of Vaisakhi, Diwali and Eid are important moments in town life. During Vaisakhi, in spring, colourful processions wind through the streets, and the gurdwaras offer free food to everyone, residents and visitors alike.

Eating and drinking

The variety of the population is reflected in the food: Slough is one of the best places in the south of England for Punjabi, Indian, Pakistani and Kashmiri cooking, with family restaurants, street-food stalls and sweet shops selling the colourful sweets of the subcontinent, mithai, made in huge quantities for festivals. There are also Polish delis and Caribbean and African restaurants. For a more traditional English atmosphere, the old pubs of Upton, Langley and the surrounding villages serve Sunday lunch, while Eton and Windsor have tea rooms and restaurants overlooking the Thames.

The Thames on foot and by bike

South of the town flows the Thames, and along its banks runs the Thames Path, the national trail that follows the river from its source to London. The stretch between Windsor, Eton, Boveney and Maidenhead is one of the most beautiful: meadows, locks, swans, old riverside churches and, in the background, the outline of Windsor Castle. Along the Jubilee River runs another quiet path, ideal for birdwatching. A network of cycle routes links Slough with Windsor, Eton and Dorney Lake, and in summer you can hire rowing boats or take short river cruises from Windsor.

A day in Slough and around

A possible itinerary: in the morning walk across the bridge over the Thames from Eton to visit Windsor and its castle, then head back towards Slough through Eton, with the college founded in 1440 and its high street full of antique shops. The afternoon is for Herschel Park and Langley church, or for a walk in Burnham Beeches or at Stoke Poges, where the poet Thomas Gray set his famous Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard in the churchyard of St Giles. In the evening return to town for dinner in one of its many Indian and Punjabi restaurants.

Around Slough

• Windsor and its castle, the oldest occupied castle in the world, a few minutes away.
• Eton, with its famous college, and Dorney Lake, the artificial lake where the rowing events of the London 2012 Olympics were held.
• Stoke Poges, with Thomas Gray's church and Stoke Park, where James Bond's famous golf match in Goldfinger was filmed.
• The Jubilee River, an artificial channel built to protect the area from Thames floods, now a haven for birds and walkers.
• London, half an hour by train.

Living in Slough

Slough has one of the highest employment rates in the country and a strong economy, with the UK headquarters of large companies, logistics linked to Heathrow and data centres. The population is young, and the town has grown rapidly in recent decades. Rents are lower than in London and Windsor, and links to the capital are excellent. Many families also choose Slough for its schools: the town is one of the few areas of England to have kept several grammar schools, selective state secondary schools with very good results, entered by examination. The centre, however, is unattractive and has long been the subject of regeneration projects, and the town council has gone through serious financial difficulties.

Getting there and getting around

• By train: from London Paddington about a quarter of an hour on Great Western Railway fast trains; the Elizabeth line runs directly from central London without changing. From Slough the short branch line to Windsor & Eton Central takes six minutes.
• By air: Heathrow Airport is about twenty minutes away by car or bus.
• By car: the town lies on the M4 motorway.
• In town: local buses link the districts, Windsor and Heathrow.

For travel around the rest of the country see trains and transport, and for other cities British cities.

Tips for your visit

• How long: Slough is above all a base: a day for Windsor and Eton, one for the woods and Stoke Poges, the rest for London.
• Where to stay: Slough hotels generally cost less than those in Windsor and London, and are handy for flights from Heathrow.
• When to go: April to October for the parks, woods and the Thames.
• A tip: if you love astronomy, combine your visit to Slough with the Herschel Museum in Bath, where Uranus was discovered.

Slough on the map

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