Marlow (previously Great Marlow or Chipping Marlow) is a town on the very southern tip of Buckinghamshire, England. It is located on the River Thames, four miles south of High Wycombe, and four miles north west of Maidenhead.
The town name is Anglo Saxon in origin, and means 'land remaining after the draining of a pool'. In the Domesday Book in 1086 it was recorded as Merlaue, though previously it was known as Merelafan.
Marlow has been an important town for many years. This is because of its location on the River Thames: a major trade route from London. It has had its own market since 1324 at the latest, and as early as 1299 the town had its own Member of Parliament.
There has been a bridge over the Thames at Marlow since the reign of King Edward III. The current bridge is a suspension bridge, designed by William Tierney Clark in 1832, and was a prototype for the nearly identical but larger Széchenyi Chain Bridge across the River Danube in Budapest.
The Royal Military College, now based at Sandhurst in Surrey was also once located in this town. Notable residents of the town have included Mary Shelley (who wrote Frankenstein there), Percy Bysshe Shelley, T. S. Eliot, Jerome K. Jerome and General George Higginson.
Today the town hosts a regular regatta, and is the location of one of the Thames's locks.
Marlow is adjoined by Little Marlow via the Little Marlow Road and to Bourne End by the same road. Nearby is Cookham Dean, famous for its Cricket Pitch and the fact that Led Zeppelin recorded Travellin' River side Blues there in the 90's.
