United Kingdom · England
Where to Stay in Staines, England
Staines-upon-Thames is a Surrey market town where the Colne joins the Thames, with Thorpe Park and Heathrow Airport on its doorstep.
Find your area →
Where to stay in Staines
Where you base yourself shapes the visit — here's the character of each area.
The riverside argues for the middle of town. St Mary's, Staines and the walk along the Thames give the centre something the roads around it cannot, and the point where the Colne comes in is only a little further on. Two crowds share the beds.
Anyone flying out of Heathrow Airport finds the town an easy base, and so does anyone spending a day on Colossus and Stealth at Thorpe Park, which is why rooms here are counted rather than plentiful. Corner Hall and Dunmore House are the older buildings still standing among them. Egham sits across the water.
St. John's Church, Egham anchors it, and Englefield Green nearby keeps the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption, Englefield Green, so both trade the town's traffic for something slower. Stanwell is the airport side. The Church of St Mary, Stanwell is its one landmark of note and the flight paths are the neighbours, which suits an early departure and very little else.
Beds thin out towards Ankerwycke Priory. Reaching the priory means a car or a long walk beside the Thames, though the ground out there is the quietest within reach of Staines.
About Staines
Thorpe Park does most of the pulling.
What is Staines known for?
Colossus, Stealth, The Swarm and Nemesis Inferno are among the rides that bring day trippers out from London, while Tidal Wave and Rumba Rapids take care of the water side. The Thames does the rest. St Mary's, Staines stands near that water in a market town which belonged to Middlesex until its transfer to Surrey in 1965.
What are the main landmarks in Staines?
Thorpe Park owns the list. Colossus, Stealth, Hyperia, The Swarm, Nemesis Inferno, Saw, The Ride and The Walking Dead: The Ride are the names on it, while Tidal Wave, Rumba Rapids, Rush, Vortex, Detonator and Flying Fish fill out the rest of the park. Churches carry the older names.
St Mary's, Staines heads them, with the Church of St Mary, Stanwell, St. John's Church, Egham, the Parish Church of St Matthew and the Church of St Hilda spread around the borough, and Ankerwycke Priory standing out along the Thames.
What is the history of Staines?
Middlesex held Staines first. The town belonged to that county until 1965, when boundary changes moved it into Surrey, and the Borough of Spelthorne has been its administrative frame since. Water made the market.
The meeting of the Colne and the Thames gave the town both its crossing and its trade, and St Mary's, Staines has stood over that stretch of river through every version of the place. Older stone survives outside the centre. Ankerwycke Priory keeps the medieval religious record along the Thames, while the Church of St Mary, Stanwell, St. John's Church, Egham and the Church of All Saints carry the parish story across the ground on either side of the water.
Later congregations built the Parish Church of St Matthew, the Church of St Hilda and the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption, Englefield Green. Domestic building is thinner. Dunmore House and Corner Hall are most of what the town retains from its own older stock, and the twentieth century supplied the rest of the story: Heathrow Airport at the boundary, the M25 and the M3 across the approaches, and Thorpe Park turning open ground at Egham into the busiest address in the borough.
Where is Staines?
The Colne meets the Thames here. Staines lies about 17 miles west of central London on flat ground between the two rivers, and it counts as part of the Greater London Built-up Area rather than standing clear of it in open Surrey. Rivers set the terms in Staines.
Thorpe Park takes up a wide site nearby, Ankerwycke Priory sits further along the Thames, and Egham, Englefield Green and Stanwell ring the Borough of Spelthorne around the town.
What is the climate of Staines?
The Thames writes the winters. Fog settles readily on the low ground where the Colne comes in, and the same flat valley holds summer warmth over Staines a little longer than the higher country away from the rivers does. Rain spreads thinly across the year.
Thorpe Park runs on the warm months, and Tidal Wave and Rumba Rapids belong to the hottest weeks of them.
How do you get to Staines?
Heathrow Airport is the front door. The M25 and the M3 tie Staines into the national motorway network, which is how most arrivals come, and central London sits around 17 miles east of the town. Thorpe Park generates its own traffic.
Egham, Englefield Green and Stanwell are short runs from the centre, while Ankerwycke Priory lies further out along the Thames.
Good for
More cities in England
Updated August 2026