Monkey Island, Bray

Monkey Island is a small island in the River Thames in England, on the reach above Boveney Lock near the village of Bray, Berkshire. It is now occupied by a hotel but sports an interesting history involving grotesquely painted monkeys and the Duke of Marlborough.

Although painted monkeys still lurk in the pavilion, the name Monkey Island stems from the Old English Monks Eyot, i.e., Monks' Island. It was named after those monks residing at Amerden Bank, a moated site near Bray Lock on the Buckinghamshire bank of the river, as part of the Merton Priory from 1197 until the Dissolution of the Monasteries. By the 14th century, Monkey Island had passed to the Canonesses of Burnham Abbey, a mile to the North, and in the Bray Court Rolls of 1361, the island is called Bournhames Eyte. That name recurs in the P.R.O. plan of 1640 as Burnham-Ayt.

The island passed to the Englefield family in 1606. After the Great Fire of London in 1666, Oxfordshire stone was shipped downstream in barges for rebuilding of the City. On their return, the barges carried rubble to be dumped on the Thames islands. Such London rubble gave Monkey Island today's solid foundation and raised it high enough to eliminate the danger of serious flooding.

In 1738, Charles Spencer, 3rd Duke of Marlborough acquired the island from Sir Francis Englefield. Spencer had seen the property while attending the Kit-Kat Club at nearby Down Place. The Duke was a well-known angler, and it was he who erected the first two buildings on the island to indulge his hobby. The fishing lodge and the fishing temple, as they were then described, stand to this day as the Pavilion and the Temple, respectively.

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