Category: history

Inside the Gothic Temple

If you live in north Buckinghamshire, or nearby, you’ll probably know Stowe (main house shown above) – one of the most extravagant and famous National Trust properties in the area. You may not know that you can stay in one of the extraordinary set of buildings within the estate.

The Gothic Temple was the final piece of construction at Stowe in Viscount Cobham’s campaign against the then Prime Minister, Robert Walpole, in the early 18th century. According to the National Trust’s booklet ‘Stowe: the people and the place’, at this point the term Gothic was synonymous with ‘Germanic’ and suggested ‘vigour, hardihood and love of liberty’ – all qualities which Cobham and some of his fellow dissident Whigs felt the government of the day lacked, or had lost.

The Temple is now available for holiday lets via the Landmark Trust, and today was one of its occasional open days. All mods are, of course, not con; the kitchen and bathroom are quite basic, and spiral staircases are not for the nervous. But if you can accept that, and like the idea of looking up at the beautifully decorated ceiling of the dome, or out at wonderful views across the Stowe estate, it’s worth it.

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A town fit for heroes

As it continues to adapt to the demands of the 21st century, Aylesbury and its immediate surrounds are unveiling new attractions and developments at what once might have seemed a bewildering rate. In the past few years we’ve seen the opening of the Aylesbury Waterside Theatre, impressive inside and out, as well as new artwork honouring two showbiz stars with connections to the town, Ronnie Barker and David Bowie. Today, we took a look at two new visitor attractions, one in the town centre and one in nearby Stoke Mandeville.

The first stop was at The Exchange, an area just around the corner from central Market Square which used to be a car park. The new development will include residential flats and retail spaces, and work is not complete, as the sound of drilling makes clear. But the first new café/restaurant, the Rococo Lounge, is now open. This is the latest in a chain which includes a branch in nearby Amersham. The vibe is relaxed and noisy, with plenty of families bringing small children in for mid-morning snacks or an early brunch or lunch. The menus, with plenty of gluten free and vegan options, are as eclectic as the interior design, which combines three types of lampshade with framed prints on every spare inch of the walls and ironic 1950s-style graphics on the menus. To add stardust, there’s a large painting of David Bowie on the wall behind the counter. It’s all good fun, and we enjoyed the chorizo and halloumi hash and a mini-tray of three tapas choices.

The area immediately outside Rococo features three sculptures, also new this year, all of human figures: one standing (“I am free”); one in a horizontal pose (“I am strong”); and one crouching (“I am me”). The collective title is “I am”, and the works are a tribute to the Paralympic movement.

You can now find out more about how the Paralympics began by visiting a small new museum at the Stoke Mandeville Stadium, the national centre for disabled sport, which sits incongruous at one end of a modern residential estate a couple of miles out of Aylesbury town centre. The story of the Paralympics begins with a German doctor, Ludwig Guttman. As the display – the work of the National Paralympic Heritage Trust – explains, Guttman came with his family to England to escape the growing effects of Nazi rule; as a Jewish doctor, he was allowed only to treat Jewish patients, a ruling he actively defied. The British Government asked Guttman to run a new unit for spinal injuries at the Emergency Medical Services Hospital in Stoke Mandeville – anticipating an influx of paralysed servicemen as World War II ground on. The new spinal unit opened in 1944.

For the full story of how Guttman harnessed the power of sport as a powerful therapy for disability, and how that led to the ‘Wheelchair Games’ of 1948 and eventually to the birth of the Paralympic movement, we thoroughly recommend visiting this new exhibition, conveniently located near the stadium entrance, next to a cafe. You can’t miss it; large replicas of Wenlock and Mandeville, the mascots of the London 2012 Paralympics, stand nearby. The objects on display include a couple of the wheelchairs used in competition and a goalball (used for practice), all of which you can touch, and the 2012 torch, which you can hold. The most extravagant item is Sir Ian McKellen’s gown from the 2012 opening ceremony, a purple creation imagining Prospero from The Tempest as one of London’s Pearly Kings.

It won’t take you long to get around the displays, but it’s well worth it. This is a well-presented tribute to the qualities of tolerance, imagination, willpower and persistence which drove Guttman, his patients and the many Paralympic heroes who have come since.

Feel the festival

In recent years, in addition to events in specific locations across the region, a number of Chilterns-wide festivals have sprung up. This is excellent news for two main reasons: (1) more local events from which to choose; (2) in the long run, we hope, a higher profile for the Chilterns as a whole.

The star at the moment is the Chilterns Arts Festival – a week-long programme of musical events in some splendid venues including All Saints Church in Marlow (pictured above). The climax is a special performance of Così fan tutte at Pipers Corner School this Saturday, 16 February.

The year is still young, so there are plenty more Chilterns-wide festivals to come:-

See you there…?

Abbey days are here again: a triptych

Embroidery has never loomed too large in our household, or too high on our list of cultural attractions or artistic skills. True, Helen’s father used to create the odd piece. And her mother once answered “Embroidery” to the Trivial Pursuits question “What was the name of the first craft to go up in space?”

But we haven’t thought too much about it over the years. Nonetheless, when we stayed at Missenden Abbey the other day, we found a splendid example of the art, lurking behind a mobile coat-rail in reception.

“The story of Misseden Abbey” [sic] was created in 1990 by Alison M Binns, after a weekend at the Abbey on an HNC in embroidery design. Using traditional techniques including stumpwork figures for the people – a method which was, apparently, popular in the late medieval and early modern periods – it divides the story of the Abbey into three sections:-

  • The blue panel marks the Abbey’s creation in 1133 by Augustinian monks who had fled from France, and the origins of that order
  • The green panel depicts the Abbey’s dissolution in 1538, its purchase by various private owners and its occupation by Parliamentary troops during the Civil War;
  • And the red panel shows the recent history of the Abbey; its purchase by the county council for use as an adult education centre and, sadly, the destruction of the interior by a fire in 1985 (hence the use of red).

Happily, the Abbey continues to this day as a conference centre which also runs a range of short courses on creative subjects. It sits unassumingly at the opposite end of Great Missenden’s high street from the railway station; you could easily miss it. But it’s in fine fettle for a nearly 900 year old establishment, and we’d be surprised if it doesn’t make it to a full millennium.

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Chilterns 3Cs: chalk, cherries and chairs

It’s easy to forget, as we hurry about our daily lives, the quietly heroic efforts of various people and organisations striving to preserve the best of where we live, and to find out more about it. The Chilterns Conservation Board is a key local player in these parts. So it’s encouraging to learn that the Heritage Lottery Board has awarded £2 million for a five-year conservation project. The three Cs – chalk, cherries and chairs – refer to some of the best-known natural and historical features of the region.

The press release gives fuller details of exactly what will be part of the project. Our first home in Prestwood was on the site of one of the cherry orchards which used to be a major local employer. Sadly, the orchards are almost completely gone, not only from Prestwood but from the Chilterns as a whole. So it’s exciting to read that restoring the orchards to some extent, and resurrecting the annual Cherry Pie Festival, is part of the project plans.

One of Helen’s ancestors was a bodger, otherwise known as a wood turner. Furniture making used to be synonymous with High Wycombe in particular (the football team’s nickname is still “the Chairboys”), and the bodgers were a key link in the production process. As with the cherry orchards, this part of local history is well overdue for revival and re-examination.

And the chalk? Well, the Chilterns Conservation Board is already working on our large collection of Iron Age hillforts.  Whichever one you visit – whether Sharpenhoe Clappers, for example, in the northern Chilterns – there’s nothing like an old hillfort for a bit of atmosphere and mystery. This new project promises to step up work on the hillforts, and we may even learn more about Grim’s Ditch – though, if investigations come up with anything better than that wonderful name, we’ll be surprised.

Rare birds and butterflies should benefit, too, with this project providing additional resources to try to ensure that rareness doesn’t turn into extinction. All in all, we think the HLF’s £2 million for this new project is going to be money well spent.

Do you think it’s 60?

When a tourist attraction has been open for a long time, one of the challenges for those who own and manage it is to find new reasons for people to visit. This is presumably a major issue for the National Trust, whose five million members eagerly make use of their membership whenever they can.

In 2019 one of the Trust’s most famous properties in Buckinghamshire, Waddesdon Manor, will be celebrating 60 years of opening to the public. As Trust members, we’ve visited many times over the years, usually to goggle at the extraordinary, relentless procession of exquisite, expensive taste displayed within the house. We do enjoy the gardens too – and remember fondly a mynah bird called George, who lived in the Aviary and who might favour you with a range of comments, from the accurate but unimaginative “Waddesdon Manor” to the more colourful “You’re an old stinker!”

This Christmas, as part of a special Carnival programme, Waddesdon is looking a bit different from normal, and it’s all to do with light shows. The Stables are illuminated (the work of the Guildhall School), as is the front of the Manor itself, and there’s a light trail on the paths around the Aviary. Any aficionado of horror films knows how the atmosphere of a place can change at night; that’s certainly the case here. The magnificence of the grounds turns to mystery and it’s all quite eerie, even with the large number of visitors around (and the younger children seemed to be having a whale of a time). If you’re in the areas between now and 2 January, we recommend a visit. You can also pre-book tickets for visits to the house – but, for once, the grounds are the star.

We will remember them: Wilfred Owen and other Great War poets

“I sense his presence, sometimes,” said the elderly gentleman standing next to us as we admired the plaque. “If it’s evening, and I’m preparing the lay reading for the next day, it seems as if he’s here.” Charmingly, he adds: “Does that seem silly?”

It doesn’t. We’re inside All Saints Church, a minute or two down the road from the village of Dunsden, sometimes known as Dunsden Green. Here, for about 18 months between late 1911 and early 1913, Wilfred Owen served as lay assistant to the Vicar, shortly before the outbreak of World War I, which would transform and eventually claim his life. On a strictly physical level, Owen isn’t here now (though his parents and sister are buried in the churchyard); his remains are at Ors in northern France, close to where he died in action on 4 November 1918, one week before the Armistice. In another sense, Owen’s story ended in Shrewbury, his childhood home town, where his mother received on 11 November the telegram informing her of his death, as the town’s church bells were ringing out in celebration of the peace.

Owen ‘belongs’ to all these places, and more. A century later, we still remember his words, perhaps most famously his denunciation of “The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est / Pro patria mori.”

Other Great War poets – some who died in the conflict, others who survived or outlived it – lived in and around the Chilterns and the Thames Valley. Sadly, Christ Church in High Wycombe, where poet and composer Ivory Gurney was organist both during and after the war, has long since gone. But you can still drink at the Pink and Lily in Princes Risborough, a favourite haunt of Rupert Brooke when he went for walks in the area. Maybe most poignant of all is the experience of standing in the beautiful Thames-side village of Goring, as you think of Laurence Binyon, a Goring resident. Binyon’s most famous poem For the Fallen is heard each Remembrance Day – particularly the third and fourth verses:-

“They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.”