Maidenhead escorts in SL6, at the western end of the Elizabeth line

A commuter town with a river attached

For most of the day Maidenhead behaves like what it is, a town that sends a lot of people to London and gets them back at seven. Then you walk ten minutes down to Boulters Lock and the whole register changes: water, boats, a weir, and a stretch of the Thames that looks nothing like the rest of the county. Anyone staying here for two nights should spend one of the evenings on that side of town.

Norden Farm Centre for the Arts on Altwood Road is the other reason to be here midweek. It puts on plays, recitals and small touring shows, it is about ten minutes from the station by car, and an early curtain leaves the whole evening still in front of you. It is also the single best way to avoid the town's real weakness, which is that its kitchens are not built for a post-theatre crowd.

Three very different places to stay

SL6 2PZ, on Shoppenhangers Road, is the one most evenings on this page start in: a proper dining room, grounds of its own, and five minutes from the station. SL6 2RA, on Manor Lane, is the straightforward business option, close to the A404 and easy to reach off the motorway.

The great house at Taplow, SL6 0JF, is a different proposition altogether. It sits above the Thames in a great deal of parkland about fifteen minutes north east of the town, and an evening there is a country evening with everything that implies about travel time and kitchen hours. As everywhere on this site, these are given because guests stay in them. No arrangement exists with any of them and none of them hears a word about a booking.

Five minutes to the platform, fifty to Paddington

Maidenhead station is five minutes on foot from the middle of town and carries Great Western services and the Elizabeth line. Paddington is around fifty minutes on the Elizabeth line and rather less on a fast train, which puts this town within easy reach of a companion living in central London and explains why the last train back is later than most guests assume.

Furze Platt is about twenty five minutes on foot and Taplow about thirty, so both are drives in practice. By road, Slough is fifteen minutes east, Windsor twenty south east, Burnham a quarter of an hour, and Heathrow around half an hour when the M4 is behaving itself.

Book the table before the curtain

Maidenhead is not a late town by London standards. Eat before ten or eat in your hotel, and there is no third option worth taking. An evening with a show in it therefore wants dinner first and the theatre after, or three hours at the very least so that neither half is rushed.

Three hours at £700 is the length this page recommends most often, and the four hour dinner date at £900 is what people book at Cliveden or Fredrick's when the dining room is the point of the night. The fee is handed to your companion in person as she arrives, and it is precisely the figure Etta set out beforehand.

Who knows SL6

Karolina is the best informed person on this desk about what is on at Norden Farm this week, tall, slim and quietly opinionated about staging. Thea is the long dinner specialist, caramel blonde and a genuine enthusiast for an argument about a menu. Nancy takes the riverside evenings at Boulters and swims outdoors in weather that would stop most people.

Nearby, Lea and Margo come over from the country houses at Burnham in a quarter of an hour, and Bianka or Violetta will travel up from Windsor in about twenty minutes if you would rather choose by company than by postcode.

Fifteen and twenty minutes from here

Burnham is fifteen minutes east, all woodland and gravel drives, and shares this page's taste for a long dinner. Windsor is twenty minutes south east and a much busier evening. Slough is fifteen minutes back along the line, plainer and quicker, with the fast trains to London on the end of it.