There’s always plenty to see at Waddesdon Manor, perhaps the most famous Rothschild house in Britain. At the moment, in addition to the many and various splendours on show all year round, there’s a special exhibition about the Aldobrandini Tazze, … Continue reading The show must go on? The Silver Caesars mystery
Every town has its statues, and Aylesbury probably needs them more than most. Since Henry VIII made it the county town of Buckinghamshire, its fortunes have been mixed. It suffered from an outbreak of plague in 1603-4 and from urban … Continue reading Hello from them: the men who fell to Aylesbury
“Were you born in a barn?” was a question irritated adults used to ask during our childhood, if we left a door open and the cold came inside. The question probably didn’t have a specific barn in mind: certainly not … Continue reading From monks to Moneypenny: 007’s car and an Oxfordshire barn
One of the many pleasures of our research has been finding local producers who are bringing new food and drink tastes to the region. Ben and Kate Marston are great examples. A marketing expert and a graphic designer by trade, … Continue reading The gin in Tring is better out than in…
Off the A418 between Aylesbury and Thame sits a historic house that once housed a French monarch for five years. Hartwell House, now a luxury hotel under National Trust ownership, was home to the court of Louis XVIII of France … Continue reading Louis, Robert and Winston: traces of the famous at a Bucks historic house
Today we visited somewhere we have driven past on countless occasions over the years, a classic example of tourist’s doorstep law (you don’t bother looking at things under your nose). After a morning examining two ancient hillfort sites, one at … Continue reading A Chinese president and a non-takeaway
Marlow has boasted several famous writers as residents: TS Eliot, the Shelleys, Isaak Walton. But the town’s most extraordinary author was surely Kate Marsden (1859-1931), who became a writer by chance: she was a nurse, who first became obsessed with … Continue reading Marlow’s Siberian connection
I admit it – that heading’s clickbait. As it happens, my view is that our current monarch is one of the more blameless people in British public life today. She has served, stoically and dutifully, for well over 60 years. … Continue reading The carelessness of Queen Elizabeth II
It’s amazing what you come across by accident – or, to put it another way, browsing in charity bookshops. In this case, it was a shop in Princes Risborough where we found a book about King Zog (one of the … Continue reading Forty years on… then another forty
If Rupert Brooke had spent more time drinking in and around Henley rather than Princes Risborough, he might have inverted his most famous line. For, in the little village of Stoke Row, there is some corner of an English field … Continue reading Some corner of an English field…
Slow Travel: The Chilterns and Thames Valley 