About the studio
A web design studio named after a bridge
Hare & Arch is a small studio on the Thames in Maidenhead. We build fast, well-made websites for businesses between Henley and Windsor, and we keep them found on Google.
The name
Why a hare and an arch
Brunel's bridge at Maidenhead, in Turner's light.
The studio is named after a bridge. In 1838 Isambard Kingdom Brunel carried the Great Western Railway across the Thames at Maidenhead on two brick arches. Each spans 128 feet and rises only 24, which makes them the flattest brick arches ever built. A shallow arch pushes hard sideways on its supports, and plenty of people expected these to fall into the river.
The doubters included the railway's board. When the time came to take down the timber centring, the wooden frame that holds an arch up while the mortar sets, the board ordered it left in place. Brunel had it eased down until it carried nothing, and it stayed there looking useful. A storm took it away late in 1839. The arches did not move. They carry trains today, and since 2012 the whole bridge has been Grade I listed.
In 1844 J. M. W. Turner painted a train crossing it. Rain, Steam and Speed now hangs in the National Gallery in London, and if you look along the track ahead of the engine you can find a hare running in front of the train. People still argue about what the hare is doing there. We took it as a brief. Something quick, running on something that won't give way.
The name has a second half. The arch over the towpath is known locally as the Sounding Arch, because a voice under it comes back to you as an echo. A sounding is also a depth reading taken from a boat, a measurement made before deciding where to steer. That is why our blog is called Soundings.
Fast as the hare, sound as the arch.
The founder
From surf-shop websites to a studio on the Thames
Nick Halden grew up in Newcastle, the surf town north of Sydney. At fifteen he taught himself HTML by building websites for local surf shops and bands, and he has been building for the web ever since.
In 2012 he moved to London on a working visa and spent nine years in agencies in Clerkenwell and Shoreditch. He started as a developer and left as an SEO lead, so he knows how a website gets built and whether anyone ever finds it. That pairing sits at the heart of how Hare & Arch works. A handsome site that never turns up on Google has done half its job, and a site that ranks well but crawls on a phone has done the other half badly.
In 2021 he and his partner left London for Maidenhead, for the river, a garden and a train back into town when he needs it. He freelanced for businesses up and down the valley for two years, and in 2023 he founded Hare & Arch. Three years in, he has a content lead, a technical lead and a local SEO manager alongside him, and he still walks the towpath to Boulter's Lock most mornings.
How the studio works
Plain principles, written down
These are the habits you can hold us to, from the first email to the last invoice.
You talk to the person doing the work
There are four of us, and whoever you are talking to writes your pages, builds your site or looks after your Google listing. There is no account manager passing notes between you and the people with their hands on it. Every new enquiry is read by a real person, usually Nick.
Prices are published
The ranges are on this site. Towpath is £2,400–£3,800, Reach is £4,500–£8,500, The Form is from £95 a month and SEO retainers run from £650 a month, all before VAT. Every project is still quoted properly after a conversation, but nothing about the size of the bill should come as a surprise. What a small business website costs in 2026 explains where the money goes.
Straight answers
If you don't need a new website, we will say so. If a search term is out of reach for a site your size, you will hear that too, along with what is within reach. Reports are written in plain English, because a report you can't read can't change a decision.
You own the site outright
The design, the code and the content are yours. If you ever decide to move on, you take the site with you and nobody holds anything back. Care and hosting is there if you want us to look after the site, never because you are stuck with us.
The team
The people doing the work
Four people, each looking after a different part of the job.
Nick Halden
Founder
Nick grew up in Newcastle, the surf town north of Sydney, and taught himself HTML at fifteen building sites for local surf shops and bands. In 2012 he moved to London and spent nine years in agencies in Clerkenwell and Shoreditch, starting as a developer and leaving as an SEO lead. In 2021 he swapped the city for a terrace near the river in Maidenhead, freelanced for businesses up and down the valley, and founded Hare & Arch in 2023. Three years in, he still walks the towpath to Boulter's Lock most mornings.
Imogen Pryce
Content Lead
Imogen spent seven years writing and editing features for regional lifestyle magazines across Berkshire and Buckinghamshire, which taught her what people in the valley actually read and what they skim. She runs Hare & Arch's content: research, page plans and copy that answers the question a customer typed, in the order they'd ask it.
Dev Malhotra
Technical Lead
Dev built web platforms for a Reading software house for six years before deciding he'd rather make one small business's site properly fast than shave milliseconds off a dashboard nobody loved. He owns the build: performance, accessibility, structured data and migrations that don't lose rankings.
Hattie Clarke
Local SEO Manager
Hattie grew up in Cookham and spent five years running front of house for riverside restaurants before moving into marketing, so she learned what visitors search for by answering it at the door. She manages Google Business Profiles, reviews and town pages for clients from Henley to Windsor.
Start a project
Tell us what the website needs to do
A short note is plenty. Tell us what you sell, where, and what isn't working, and you'll get a straight answer within a working day, even when the answer is that you don't need us.
