Slough
Slough is a town in Berkshire, England, in the Thames Valley, west of central London and north-east of Reading, at the intersection of the M4, M40 and M25 motorways. It is part of the historic county of Buckinghamshire. In 2021, the population of the town was 143,184. The wider Borough of Slough had a population of 158,500.
Slough's population is one of the most ethnically diverse in the United Kingdom, attracting people from across the country and the world for labour since the 1920s, which has helped shape it into a major trading centre. As of the 2021 UK census, 46.9% of the population was Asian, 35.9% White, 7.5% Black, 4% Mixed, 1.2% Arab and 4.5% of other ethnic heritage.
Other than London, Slough has the highest concentration of global company headquarters in the UK. Blackberry, McAfee, Burger King, DHL, Telefonica and Lego have head offices in the town. Slough Trading Estate is the largest industrial estate in single private ownership in Europe, with over 17,000 jobs in 400 businesses.
History
The town's name was first recorded in 1195 as Slo. It first seems to have applied to a hamlet between Upton to the east and Chalvey to the west, roughly around the "Crown Crossroads" where the road to Windsor met the Great West Road. The Domesday Survey of 1086 refers to Upton, and a wood for 200 pigs, worth £15. During the 13th century, King Henry III had a palace at Cippenham. Parts of Upton Court were built in 1325, while St Mary the Virgin Church in Langley was probably built in the late 11th or early 12th century, though it has been rebuilt and enlarged several times.From the mid-17th century, stagecoaches began to pass through Slough and Salt Hill, which became locations for the second stage to change horses on the journey out from London. By 1838 and the opening of the Great Western Railway, Upton-cum-Chalvey's parish population had reached 1,502. In 1849, a branch line was completed from Slough to Windsor & Eton Central, opposite Windsor Castle, for Queen Victoria's convenience.
Slough has 96 listed buildings. There are
- Four Grade I: St Laurence's Church, St Mary the Virgin Church, Langley, Baylis House and Godolphin Court
- Seven Grade II*: St Mary's Church, Upton Court, the Kederminster and Seymour Almshouses in Langley, St Peter's Church, Ostrich Inn and King John's Palace
- Grade II listed structures include four milestones, Beech, Oak and Linden Houses at Upton Hospital, St Ethelbert's Church, Slough and Slough railway station.
During the Second World War, Slough experienced a series of air raids, mostly in October 1940, and an emergency hospital treating casualties from London was set up in Slough. Local air raid deaths and deaths at the hospital account for the 23 civilian lives recorded lost in the borough area.
After the war, several further large housing developments arose to take large numbers of people migrating from war-damaged London. Between 1955 and 1957 the town was the site of the Slough experiment, a large-scale road safety trial.
The old Slough library was opened on 28 November 1974. It was officially called the Robert Taylor Library, named after Alderman Taylor in recognition of his contribution to the library service. The library was officially opened by the Mayor, Councillor DR Peters, on 15 May 1975. It was demolished in May 2017 as part of the programme of redevelopment in the town centre.
Redevelopment
In the 21st century, Slough has seen major redevelopment of the town centre. Old buildings are being replaced with new offices and shopping complexes. Tesco has replaced an existing superstore with a larger Tesco Extra. The Heart of Slough Project is plan for the large-scale redevelopment of the town centre as a focus and cultural quarter for the creative media, information and communications industries created a mixed-use complex, multi-functional buildings, visual landmarks and a public space in the Thames Valley. Approval was given for the £400 million project by Slough Borough Council's planning committee on 9 July 2009, and work began in 2010 for completion in 2018.In December 2009, two key components of the project were signed: the Homes and Communities Agency signed its agreement to provide £11m of funding for infrastructure and Thames Valley University courses which were due to remain in the town found a new home at the Centre in Farnham Road, Slough. In parallel to the town centre redevelopment plan, Segro planned to spend £600 million over the following 20 years on the estate. This was intended to create environmentally sustainable buildings, open green spaces, two hotels, a conference centre, cafés, restaurants and better transport facilities to improve links to Slough town centre and the surrounding residential areas. It was claimed that the plan would create more than 4,100 new jobs and contribute around £100m a year to Slough's economy. If both plans went ahead, nearly £1 billion would be spent on redeveloping Slough over the next 20 years.
In 2009, Herschel Park, named for astronomer William Herschel, was relandscaped in a multimillion-pound effort to bring it back to its former Victorian era glory. The park was featured in an episode of the documentary programme Who Do You Think You Are? focusing on the TV presenter Davina McCall.
In 2010, £2 million was set aside to improve disabled access to Slough railway station in preparation for an expected increase in use during the 2012 London Olympics. Preparations were under way for the regeneration of the Britwell suburb of Slough, involving tearing down a dilapidated block of flats and the closing of the public house the Jolly Londoner in Wentworth Avenue and replacing them with new homes, as well as relocating the shopping parade in the street to nearby Kennedy Park.
As part of the Heart of Slough project, construction work on a new bus station began in March 2010, following weeks of demolition work to half of the existing bus station and the removal of Compair House near the railway station. It was opened in May 2011.
Redevelopment on this scale has been strongly criticised by conservation groups. The Twentieth Century Society has stated that
tragically high quantity of good buildings have been demolished in Slough in recent years, including grand Art-Deco-styled factories by the likes of Wallis Gilbert and high-quality post-war offices. More are to come down as the town tries to erase its past and reinvent itself from scratch. Despite famously heckling Slough, John Betjeman's praise for the town hall's architecture as 'a striving for unity out of chaos' in 1948 has never been so relevant as today. C20 believes that the redevelopment of the town hall would be an act of vandalism to the civic centre and is supporting the Campaign to Save Slough's Heritage in their request for a review of the decision.
During November 2016, the Slough Queensmere and Observatory shopping centres were sold to Abu Dhabi Investment Authority in a deal worth £130 million.
In February 2025, it was reported that the council was considering a number of options to merge with larger local authorities, including joining a London borough or becoming part of the Greater London Authority.
Geography
Slough is west of Charing Cross, central London, north of Windsor, east of Maidenhead, south-east of High Wycombe and north-east of the county town of Reading. Slough is within the Greater London Urban Area and on the border with London Borough of Hillingdon and London Borough of Hounslow. Heathrow Airport is 5 miles away. Nearby towns are Uxbridge to the northeast and Beaconsfield to the north.Most of the area that now makes up Slough was anciently part of Buckinghamshire, however, Poyle was historically in Middlesex. The town developed by the expansion and amalgamation of villages along the Great West Road. Over the years Slough has expanded greatly, incorporating a number of different villages. Original villages that are now suburbs of Slough include Chalvey, Cippenham, Colnbrook, Langley, Poyle, Upton, and Wexham.
Named neighbourhoods include Brands Hill, Britwell, Huntercombe, Manor Park, Salt Hill, Upton Lea and Windsor Meadows. The urban area merges into the neighbouring parishes of Burnham, a small area of Taplow near Cippenham, Farnham Royal and Stoke Poges which remain in the county of Buckinghamshire and Datchet which is in Berkshire. Eton is narrowly buffered by the Jubilee River and by green space from part of Slough, and the two areas formerly formed the Eton birth, marriages and deaths registration district.
Climate
The nearest Met Office weather observing station to Slough is Heathrow Airport, about east of Slough town centre. This part of the Thames Valley is notable for generally having the warmest daytime summer temperatures on average in the British Isles. Typically, according to 1981–2010 normals, the average high temperature in July is 23.5 °CRainfall is low compared to most of the British Isles, with under annually, and 105 days reporting over 1 mm of rain.
Demography
According to the 2021 census, Slough is a large town with a population of 158,400 of which 46.9% of the population was Asian, 35.9% White, 7.5% Black, 4% Mixed, 1.2% Arab and 4.5% of other ethnic heritage. This makes the town one of the most ethnically diverse local authorities in the country outside of London.Despite its diverse population, English is the most spoken language in 2021, with over 110,212 citing English as their first language. Those stating other languages is significantly lower due to the large shares of the British Asian and Black population speaking English as their first language. Aside from English, the most commonly spoken languages are Punjabi, Polish, and Urdu.
| Country of birth | Number resident |
| United Kingdom | 87,350 |
| India | 17,107 |
| Pakistan | 14,418 |
| Poland | 8,912 |
| Romania | 3,551 |
| Kenya | 1,940 |
| Sri Lanka | 1,385 |
| Somalia | 1,336 |
| Italy | 1,125 |
| Philippines | 1,064 |
Figures from the 2021 UK census showed that 32% of Slough's population identified as Christian, 29.4% as Muslim, 11.4% as Sikh, 7.8% as Hindu, 0.5% as Buddhist, 0.1% as Jewish, 0.5% as having other religions, 13% as having no religion and 5.4% did not answer the question.
Compared with the 2011 UK census, the percentage of Slough residents identifying as Muslim increased by 6.1%, the largest increase of any religious group in Slough, while those identifying as Christian fell from 41.2% to 32.0%, with those identifying as having no religion rising slightly from 12.1% to 13.1%.