Riverside - south bank west of the Tower. Bray Monkey Island Lane

Riverside - south bank west of the Tower. Bray Monkey Island Lane

This post covers the south bank of the river only. The north bank is the north end of the Eton Rowing Lake

Post to the north Monkey Island and Dorney Reach and Amerden
Post to the east Dornay Lake

Monkey Island Lane
Bray Lake. This is a sports centre in an old gravel extraction site run by Summerleaze Gravel. In 1979 a sail boarding business operating out of a lorry began, while the Pit was still working. Despite set backs the centre has flourished and expanded. There are now a wide range of facilities and buildings.
Bray Quarry. This is the main processing plant for Summerleaze Gravel producing more than 400,000t of sand and gravel with a fixed sand and gravel processing plant. It has collection and delivery facilities for all aggregate types. It was previously the processing plant for Eton Aggregates and takes unprocessed sand and gravel from other quarries in the Thames Valley.
Conveyor system. Summerleaze operate a conveyor system which links new sites to the north with their existing plant at Bray Lake, and elsewhere and the Summerleaze footbridge. It was designed, manufactured and installed by Leicestershire-based Wileman Engineering. Road transport was ruled out under planning consent.
Bray Marina. Owned by MDL which operates many such facilities. It takes 400 boats and there are social facilities and a restaurant.  It is in a flooded gravel working, connected to the river in 1965/6 and on the site of Pardoe’s boathouse
Pennyroyal Field.  This is a Site of Special Scientific Interest covering a single field which is a site for the nationally rare pennyroyal Mentha pulegium.  The site is an infilled gravel pit excavated in the 1960s leaving a series of shallow, seasonally flooded depressions in which the pennyroyal grows. There are also horses grazing here.
Keleher Treatment Works. South east water. This was the Bray Water Treatment Plant built in 1993 and renamed Keleher in memory of a colleague, Mike Keleher. 30 million litres of water a day are abstracted here from the River and it is then treated: pre-ozonation, coagulation, flocculation and settlement, sand filtration, inter ozonation and granulated activated carbon contractors, disinfection
Bray Gravels Pumping Station. South East Water


Queens Eyot
Queen's Eyot, This is an island in the river owned by Eton College since 1923 with a club house. It was owned by Victor Van de Weyer who suggested the school could use it in 1898 and built a clubhouse. It was later sold to the school. The clubhouse has recently been rebuilt following a fire.


The Summerleaze Footbridge
The Summerleaze Footbridge. This is a foot bridge over the Thames going from a point on the south bank north of the Bray Marina to Dorney. It was built in 1996 as a gravel conveyor, taking gravel from Dorney Lake by Summerleaze, a sand and gravel extraction firm based in local pits.  It was originally to take gravel from the construction of the new Eton College Olympic rowing course with the conveyor itself on the underside of the bridge..


The Cut
The Cut is actually a river which originates in Ascot. It meets the Thames above Queens Eyot. It is called the Cut because it was diverted onto its present route at some time in the past, possibly in the 1880s.   It is also described as the overflow of the York Stream in Maidenhead. It was enlarged in the 1960s for flood defences

Sources
Bray Lake Watersports. Web site
French Brothers. Web site
Monkey Island Lane. Web site
Queen’s Eyot. Web site
Reminiscences of Old Hurst. Web site
South East Water. Web site
Summerleaze Gravel. Web site
Where Thames Smooth Waters Glide. Web site

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