Datchet escorts in SL3, riverside evenings one stop up the line from Windsor

A village that kept its river and lost the crowds

Houses here have been looking at the same water for three hundred years. The walk from the Green down to the river takes about ten minutes each way, past frontages that appear on no coach itinerary, and at dusk in summer there are crews out on the water. Set against Windsor, five minutes away by train, the difference in noise is almost comic.

What the village has is a green, a couple of pubs, a memorial and a station, all inside two hundred metres of each other. What it does not have is a high street of any length, late kitchens, or much in the way of anywhere to stay.

No hotel of its own, and where the rooms actually are

This page will not dress it up: there is no hotel in Datchet on our list, so an evening here either happens at a private address or begins somewhere outside the village. Worth knowing while you are planning rather than afterwards.

Closest is SL3 8PT on Ditton Road in Langley, about eight minutes by car. Across the river, SL4 1PQ on Windsor High Street is roughly ten minutes by road and five by train from the station on the Green. The Victorian house at Water Oakley, SL4 5UR, is fifteen minutes west along the river and a country house evening rather than a village one. None of the three is told anything about a booking and this desk has no arrangement with any of them.

Three minutes to the platform, and a last train that matters

Datchet station is three minutes from the Green and runs the South Western line towards Windsor and Eton Riverside in one direction and Waterloo in the other, a little under the hour. Sunnymeads is the next stop and about twenty five minutes on foot. Windsor and Eton Riverside is thirty minutes if you walk it, which people do in summer along the river.

The Waterloo line thins out well before midnight, and that single fact shapes more evenings here than anything else. If the night is likely to run long, book it long rather than keeping half an eye on a departure board. By car, Windsor is ten minutes, Slough twelve, junction 5 of the M4 about eight and Heathrow roughly fifteen.

What the evening is for

People choose Datchet when they have already done Windsor once. It is the same river with a tenth of the people standing next to it, and the change of pace is obvious within about a quarter of an hour. A walk to the water before dinner, a pub with a fire, then a long evening that does not require a decision every twenty minutes.

Two hours works if you are staying in the village. Three is better when the evening starts from a hotel outside it, because the journey sits inside the booking. Her fee is given to her in person when she arrives, the figure Etta has already put in writing, and the pub bill is a separate matter.

Who comes to the Green

Michelle is the Datchet regular, 173 cm, curvy and fond of a village green with a train station on it, and she will walk you down to the river before dinner if there is any light left. Rosa is the other, chestnut curls and completely at ease in a village pub, which out here is most of the point.

Minutes away, Bianka, Luna and Violetta are one stop down the line in Windsor, Jasmin and Lucy are a little beyond them in Eton, and Laura comes across from Langley in about eight minutes.

Five, eight and twelve minutes away

Windsor is five minutes by train and ten by road. Eton lies just beyond it over the bridge and is worth the extra few minutes. Langley is eight minutes north and holds the nearest hotel rooms. Colnbrook and the Terminal 5 belt are about twelve minutes east, which matters if there is a flight in the morning.