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High Wycombe - A History & CelebrationSelected extracts and photosReturn to Book | Search for another Book | View all photos for High Wycombe | High Wycombe homepage |
27 captions found: Showing captions 1 to 20 | |
 High Wycombe, the Abbey 1906 (ref. 53688) | IN 1801, according to the first national census, the borough had a population of 2,349 consisting of 565 families living in 448 houses, while the rest of the town, the ancient 'foreigns', had a further 1,899 people, 397 families living in 370 houses. |  Add your own Memory Add to your Album |
 High Wycombe, Frogmore Square 1921 (ref. 70607) | The ancient open space of Frogmoor had from 1877 until the Second World War a fine cast-iron fountain and well trimmed trees. Note the four gables of the old Hen and Chickens on the left (rebuilt in 1888). | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 High Wycombe, view from the Guildhall c1955 (ref. H84054) | From the arches of the Georgian Guildhall the camera looks down White Hart Street. The buildings on the right replace medieval market place encroachment. On the left the open area was until 1947 occupied by fine 16th- and 17th-century timber-framed buildings, unforgivably demolished for an aborted road improvement scheme. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 High Wycombe, from Burt's Hill 2005 (ref. H84721k) | In the foreground is Wycombe Wanderers' first ground, Adams Park, seen here in its early days. (Martin Andrew) This was taken from a similar viewpoint to 70598, but higher uphill. The Swan Theatre is on the right. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 High Wycombe, Commemorative Plaque to Ivor Gurney 2005 (ref. H84720k) | Famous Citizens: The Council's Commemorative Plaques Attached to a number of buildings in the town are circular Westmoreland green slate plaques erected by the council; they are carved by the nationally renowned Martin Cook, whose studio is a converted chapel in Loudwater. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 High Wycombe, the view from Tom Burt's Hill 1921 (ref. 70598) | In the foreground is Wycombe Wanderers' first ground, Adams Park, seen here in its early days. (Martin Andrew) This was taken from a similar viewpoint to 70598, but higher uphill. The Swan Theatre is on the right. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 High Wycombe, Wycombe Abbey School c1955 (ref. H84302) | During the Second World War the town was declared safe for both industry and people. A lot of London companies relocated, such as Cossor's - they made cathode ray tubes and radar screens, essential elements in the war effort. Indeed, the author's uncle, an electronics engineer, arrived in High Wycombe in 1942 to work at Cossor's relocated factory. Wycombe also became an important aircraft parts manufacturing centre, notably for the De Havilland Mosquito and the Wellington bomber. In the 1930s, Dancer & Hearn of The American Army at Wycombe Abbey In 1942, during the Second World War, the girls were evacuated from Wycombe Abbey School - they were given thirteen days notice. The school had been requisitioned for 8th Bomber Command. Later the US 8th Army Air Force headquarters moved in from the end of 1943 until 1946, when the girls returned. Numerous huts once stood on the present lacrosse pitches. During the war the Glenn Miller Orchestra played at Wycombe Abbey (on 29 July 1944), and the splendidly named General James H Dolittle (1896–1993) commanded the 8th USAAF here from May 1944 to July 1945. The school receives many American visitors, but a decreasing number of 8th USAAF veterans. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 High Wycombe, Queen Victoria Road looking south c1955 (ref. H84045) | Other notable changes in town before the Second World War were the straightening of Marlow Hill in 1936, which involved demolishing buildings on the left side of the road south of St Mary's Street, and other traffic-related demolition, most notably of the Black Boy Inn in Church Street. Traffic on the London to Oxford Road was now becoming a serious problem, and the town got its first traffic lights in 1934 (at the Guildhall crossroads) and an urban speed limit in 1935. This was the harbinger of more to come, for highway considerations dominated town planning after the Second World War. Elsewhere there was much rebuilding. For example, the frontage to H Samuel in Church Street was rebuilt in 1929; also, various fake timber-framed buildings were added that towered over Frogmoor, such as Parker- Knoll's offices on the west side (now Toad at the Emporium) and the Palace Cinema, which incorporated 'Ye Olde Worlde Tea Lounge'. Frogmoor itself was stripped of its trees and paved over in the 1930s, although the ornate 1876 cast iron fountain survived until it was removed during the Second World War, allegedly for the war effort. However, the most dramatic changes in the town centre were in Queen Victoria Road and Crendon Street. To the west the clearance of much of Newlands relocated its population to council estates with clean running water, mains sewage and more bedrooms, not to mention gardens and indoor lavatories and baths. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 High Wycombe, the New Town Hall 1906 (ref. 53663a) | Still alone and flanked by old trees from the carriage drive to Wycombe Abbey, the Town Hall is two years old in this view, a fine building in Queen Anne style. In the distance the white building survives - it is 16th-century with an 18th-century façade. The other two buildings went when Crendon Street was rebuilt and widened in the 1930s. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 High Wycombe, High Street c1955 (ref. H84051) | Beyond the Red Lion (left), in the 1950s still a hotel, the tall many-chimneyed buildings of 1901 flank Corporation Street, the road cut in 1900 and originally intended as the site for council offices. Weighing in the Mayor This curious ceremony was 'revived' in 1892 by the then mayor-elect, Charles Harman Hunt. He claimed that the ceremony had lapsed in 1835; but there is no mention of it in preceding centuries, although there is a tradition is that it had started in the 17th century. Whatever the truth, it is now an annual ritual in which the mayor is weighed to see if he has grown fat at the ratepayers' expense. Following a procession in full regalia, the mayor, the councillors and other dignitaries process from the Council Chamber to the area in front of the Guildhall where the scales have been set up. The weighing- in result is called out by the beadle, who if the mayor has gained weight calls 'and some more' (boos from the crowd), or if he has lost weight or stayed the same calls out 'and no more' (hearty cheers all round). The charter trustee councillors value this curious ceremony highly. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 High Wycombe, the old Cane and Rush Works, Desborough Street 2005 (ref. H84717k) | The furniture legacy from this period can be found mainly in the western part of town: many are relatively small two-storey structures up to 100 feet long, and date mostly from the first two decades of the 20th century. Some are reconstructions of burnt down timber predecessors. They give a good feel of how many factories there were, and how closely intermingled they were with the artisan houses, which were mostly built between 1880 and 1910. With such a large working class it is no surprise that Wycombe's traditions of religious dissent continued; there were numerous nonconformist churches and chapels built in the town. Several have now been demolished, so the picture has changed. The Union Baptist Chapel in Easton Street was built in 1845, designed by Octavius Jordan. It burned down in 1908, and the front block was rebuilt by Thomas Thurlow, who also designed Walter Birch's factory in Leigh Street. Arthur Vernon designed the Primitive Methodist Church in White Hart Street in 1875 (now demolished); the Wesleyans built a new church in Priory Road, also in 1875. The Congregationalists had already built their stone-fronted church in London Road with its twin Norman-style towers in 1850, designed by Charles Searle. Christ Church in Crendon Street, also by Arthur Vernon and built in 1889-97, was replaced in the 1950s by offices. A Roman Catholic church was built in Castle Street in 1900, but it was replaced by the present St Augustine's on Amersham Hill in 1955. The 19th century was one of remarkable change in all aspects of Wycombe's affairs. We leave that busy century with the town at the height of its prosperity, still growing, and poised for another major extension of its boundaries to engross the rapid expansion since the previous extension in 1880. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 High Wycombe, the Abbey School c1960 (ref. H84072) | Wycombe Abbey School's first architect, was commissioned by the school to build boarding houses, classroom blocks and dormitories, which were mostly built between 1898 and 1902, with the chapel following in 1926. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 High Wycombe, the Grange, Amersham Hill 2005 (ref. H84716k) | Meanwhile down in the town, away from the lush gardens and villas of Amersham Hill, the furniture industry was modernising into the factory system. The old two-storey workshops that could be found everywhere began to be replaced by bigger buildings, often of two or three storeys, with the ground floor brick, and the upper weatherboarded. A good smaller furniture factory survives (it is now a listed building): the Cane and Rush Works of about 1880 in Desborough Street. You can see another one re-erected at the Chiltern Open Air Museum - this is James Elliott's factory, built in Desborough Road in 1887. Walter Birch was among the first to build really large factories. His earlier one in Denmark Street burned down in 1886, and was rebuilt in brick three storeys high. Fireproof construction was seen as a distinct improvement, as the timber factories frequently burnt down. Two of his later factories survive in Leigh Street (though they are no longer furniture factories): a three-storey one of 1901, brick built, and a much more ambitious one of 3 storeys built in 1913 to designs by Thomas Thurlow, a local architect. This was extended substantially in 1926, again by Thurlow, with an added fourth floor over the 1913 block. (Martin Andrew) Built for the furniture manufacturer Walter Birch in 1900, this fine brick house had its windows broken in 1913 by striking chair workers. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 High Wycombe, Wycombe Abbey School c1960 (ref. H84119) | Wycombe Abbey School's first architect, was commissioned by the school to build boarding houses, classroom blocks and dormitories, which were mostly built between 1898 and 1902, with the chapel following in 1926. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 High Wycombe, Wycombe Abbey School Grounds c1965 (ref. H84122) | Wycombe Abbey School's first architect, was commissioned by the school to build boarding houses, classroom blocks and dormitories, which were mostly built between 1898 and 1902, with the chapel following in 1926. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 High Wycombe, the Abbey 1906 (ref. 53687) | Wycombe Cricket Club ground, it can now be seen re-erected at Chiltern Open Air Museum, complete with a toll-gate. This road was a great success, but the old Grammar School (a conversion of the medieval Hospital of St John) formed a serious bottleneck. The trustees of the turnpike pressured the Common Council into allowing them to widen the road here in 1767 by demolishing the southern part of the old hospital, truncating it to the present three bays. To the north of the town, Crendon Lane was gated near where the station now is, and a track wended its way towards Amersham over Wycombe Heath, an area infested by highwaymen. This was changed dramatically by the 1768 Turnpike Trust Act; it established a fine toll road from Hatfield to Reading via Amersham, High Wycombe and Marlow. Certainly the aldermen of Wycombe played a big role in securing and building the road; the trustees held their first meeting at the Red Lion in the High Street. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 High Wycombe, the Rupert Gates on Marlow Hill 1906 (ref. 53679) | Going back to the beginning of the 19th century, Loakes Manor together with its park was sold in August 1798 to the Right Honourable Robert Smith, Lord Carrington, a prosperous banker and friend of the Prime Minister, William Pitt the Younger. Thus began the Carrington association with the town and the transformation of the manor house. Carrington renamed Loakes Manor the much more romantic Wycombe Abbey, and set about Gothicising and extending the house. He employed the architect James Wyatt (1746–1813), whose main work was undertaken between 1803 and 1804, with other estate buildings added soon after. The old Georgian house, enlarged by Henry Keene for the 2nd Earl of Shelburne in the 1750s, was entirely cased in Denner Hill stone, a very hard silicaceous stone dug a mile or so north of the town, and also used by Wyatt in his work at Windsor Castle. The house sprouted battlements, turrets and Gothick windows, all of which survive today. In the grounds Wyatt built a Gothick screen to the older ice house and a series of lodges built in Denner Hill stone. These included the lodges which were built on the High Street at the end of the carriage drive (their sites are now the Library Gardens), by 1901 re-erected half way up Marlow Hill, and the lodge at the foot of Marlow Hill. The gates from the St Mary's Street entrance were re-erected on Daws Hill Lane at about the same time. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 High Wycombe, All Saints' Parish Church c1955 (ref. H84038) | Taken from the north-east, this photograph shows the 16th-century west tower with its pretty Gothick cornice, open quatrefoiled parapets and banded obelisk pinnacles designed by Henry Keene and added in 1755. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 High Wycombe, the Little Market House, Cornmarket 2005 (ref. H84710k) | Gold Medal in 1787 for inventing a process for making a very fine quality paper suitable for printing engravings and mezzotints. In the earlier 18th century, High Wycombe was described by the noted antiquarian and historian Browne Willis as 'in all respects the best and wealthiest town in Bucks'. This was in the early phase of its transformation, mainly by the medium of brick. The town by the end of the century had assumed a Georgian character, with the older timber frames of the pre-1650 town peeping through. In the High Street several very high quality brick-fronted houses were erected with fashionable sash windows, modillioned cornices and parapets. The Natwest Bank and the Alliance and Leicester on the south side are the finest examples, with the flint-fronted No 30 and the brick HSBC Bank in Cornmarket almost as good. The Falcon, a 17th-century inn, received an 18th-century front, while on the north side the Red Lion was re-fronted in brick in 1792 (the porch, surmounted by a carved wooden lion, was added about 1820), and No 21 (Bennett's Insurance) had its Tudor structure hidden behind a stuccoed facade. The old hog market and shambles (butchers' stalls and butchery area) immediately south of the churchyard was made more polite by the erection of Robert Adam's Little Market House in 1761. Not one of his greatest works, it was extended and raised in the 19th century; it is a distinctive and unusual building, one of a group of three very significant buildings in the heart of the town. All this rebuilding and re-fronting took place within the confines of the long, narrow medieval burgage plots, although a few were merged to create wider street frontages. Few of these burgage plots survived the 20th century, but until 1900 on the south side of Paul's Row, the High Street, and Easton Street the burgage plots ran down to the banks of the River Wye, while to the other side they ran north to Castle Street and Birdcage Walk. Thus as we reach 1800 the bones of the medieval town remain, but the streetscape had been transformed by Georgian rebuilding and re-fronting. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 High Wycombe, Cornmarket 1951 (ref. H84064) | The three-gabled early 17th-century rendered building was for years hidden by scaffolding as it was shamefully demolished bit by bit. In this photograph it looks sound. Its near-replica replacement at least provides a reminder of this important building. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
