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Three counties - Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire - meet at HENLEY-ON-THAMES , a long-established stopping place for travellers between London and Oxford. Henley is a good-looking, affluent commuter town that is at its prettiest among the old brick and stone buildings that flank the short main drag, Hart Street . At one end of Hart Street is the Market Place and its large and fetching Town Hall , at the other stands the easy Georgian curves of Henley Bridge . Overlooking the bridge is the parish church of St Mary , whose sturdy square tower sports a set of little turrets worked in chequerboard flint and stone, a popular decorative motif in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Several operators run boat trips out along the Thames from near the bridge and there is also an imaginative River and Rowing Museum (daily: May-Aug 10am-5.30pm; rest of year closes 5pm; GBP4.95), a ten-minute walk south along the river bank from the foot of Hart Street via Thames Side. This focuses on three main themes - the history of the town, the development of rowing from the Greeks onwards, and the Thames as both a wildlife habitat and as a trading link. Henley is, however, best known for its Royal Regatta , the world's most important amateur rowing tournament, when the town gets all puffed up and arrogant. Established in 1839, the Regatta is the boating equivalent of the Ascot races, a quintessentially English parade ground for the rich, aristocratic and aspiring, whose champagne-swilling antics are inexplicably found thrilling by larger numbers of the hoi polloi. The Regatta, featuring past and potential Olympic rowers, begins on the Wednesday before the first weekend in July and runs for five days. Further information is available from the Regatta Headquarters on the east side of the Hart Street bridge (tel 01491/572153).
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