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Books > North Buckinghamshire Photographic Memories
Edlesborough, the Ford and Mill c1965 (ref. E165008) | South-east of the village, a lane crosses the county boundary with Bedfordshire along the upper reaches of
the young River Ouzel. This view is taken from the Bedfordshire bank, with the ford (still in existence) in the
foreground. The windmill tower, here derelict, belonged to Edlesborough Mills, which also had a water-wheel
powered by the stream. The windmill tower is now restored and part of a house.
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Aylesbury, Market Place c1955 (ref. A84019) | The war memorial (foreground)
arrived in about 1920 after World
War I. Further names of Aylesbury
men who died for their country
had to be added after World War
II. The buildings on the left as far
as the white building with the blind
extended have been replaced,
mostly in the 1960s. We may be
thankful that the grandiose 1860s
Italianate building beyond, once
Boots and nowadays a Halifax
branch, does survive.
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Aylesbury, Market Square c1955 (ref. A84050) | This view looks along the north
side of Market Square past the
war memorial into Cambridge
Street on the left of the Round
House and the High Street to
its right. Burton's (left) in the
company's typical Art Deco style
was built in 1936, and replaced
the George Inn. The Round
House itself replaced an earlier
stuccoed version. Beyond is the
early 1960s five-storey office
building that simultaneously
ruins the streets either side of it.
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Aylesbury, Kingsbury Square 1901 (ref. 47464) | Probably the original market place, and
nearer the parish church whose tower
looms in the background, Kingsbury Square
was laid out in the Middle Ages and has
several good, old buildings including the
16th-century The Rookwood. The houses
on the left, by 1901 shops but retaining
front gardens, were replaced in the 1960s
by mediocre offices over a shop. Beyond
them, the tall building is the Victoria
Working Men's Club, built in 1887 to
commemorate Queen Victoria's Golden
Jubilee and funded by the ubiquitous Baron
Rothschild of Waddesdon.
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Aylesbury, the Vale Park c1950 (ref. A84007) | At the bottom end of the High Street is The Vale, a park formally opened in 1937 in fields between the now
vanished London and North Western Railway station (demolished in 1960) and the gas works, also now gone.
Now a smart covered swimming pool replaces the old open air Vale Pool, but the park is relatively little changed.
The drinking fountain was originally installed in 1914 in Kingsbury, but was moved here after 1929.
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Aylesbury, the Milk Factory 1897 (ref. 39640) | The coal wharves at the canal basin by Walton Street were soon joined by factories along the canal. One that
arrived in 1870 to take advantage both of the canal and the milk from the Vale of Aylesbury dairy herds was the
Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company, later Nestlé's factory, still functioning. Here the photographer looks across
the canal from the meadow (now occupied by housing) to the factory, nowadays somewhat changed; it had great
dignity with its range of gables and sash windows.
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Aylesbury, Cambridge Street c1955 (ref. A84028) | Cambridge Street,
misleadingly, does not head
for Cambridge, and was
formerly Bakers Lane. It is
now a one-way street - the
far end was demolished for
the inner relief road. Ye Olde
Harrow Inn back entrance
has a bacon shop on the left.
The pub has now merged
with the Barleycorn on the
Buckingham Street corner
and is archly renamed the
Farmyard and Firkin. More
survives on the right, while the
three-storey building on the
left, dated 1897, also survives. | Add your own Memory
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Aylesbury, County Asylum, Stone 1897 (ref. 39632) | Buckinghamshire's County Lunatic Asylum was built at Stone, three miles west of
Aylesbury, in the early 1850s. It was given a more ornate entrance building in the
1860s, including the tower. Later renamed rather more tactfully St John's Hospital,
it was completely demolished in the 1990s and replaced by housing estates,
leaving only the Gothic chapel of 1869, currently boarded up and awaiting a buyer
(July 2002). This view looks down Warren Close from the main Aylesbury Road, the
chapel on the left just out of view.
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Bletchley, Central Gardens c1955 (ref. B439022) | Just as in B439018, much has changed in this view. Central Park ran from Queensway to the back of Western
Road, whose c1900 houses can be seen in the distance. In the 1950s it was a typical town centre park with seats,
walks and flower beds, but all this changed when the Leisure Centre arrived in 1971-76, with its pyramidal pool
building and large sports hall. This area is now the car park and grass margin to the rear service access road.
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Bow Brickhill, the Parish Church c1960 (ref. B451007) | Perched on the greensand ridge high above
its village, the delightful All Saints' parish
church is built in the dark brown stone
extracted from the hills around it. In 1960
there were fine views from here across
north Buckinghamshire; now trees obscure
this completely in summer, but in winter
we can look north-west over the new city
of Milton Keynes, and at night see its lights
spreading as far as the eye can see. The
church is mostly 15th-century, with some
chalkstone window dressings.
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Buckingham, Parish Church c1965 (ref. B280089) | Further up Castle Street and at its junction with Bristle Hill to the right and Elm Street on the left, the photographer
is looking towards the great east window of the parish church. The chancel is the work of the local boy made
good, the great Victorian architect Sir George Gilbert Scott, whose father was vicar of nearby Gawcott. The garage
with the three-wheeler outside, a good stucco Early Georgian house, is now offices.
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Buckingham, Chandos Road Board School c1950 (ref. B280024) | The Board School
became Chandos
First School, and is
now (2002) Grenville
Combined School. Its
baroque-ish design is
unchanged, although the
cupola has long gone.
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Gawcott, Main Street c1960 (ref. G229010) | Gawcott, a mile and a half
south-west of Buckingham,
lies at the head of a stream
(flowing north into the River
Ouse) whose course runs
along the right-hand side of
this road. This view looks
east along Main Street from
beside Leyland Farm. This
is not the best end of the
village architecturally, but
we can see the tower of the
parish church of 1827 in
the distance.
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Gawcott, Main Street c1960 (ref. G229005) | Further east, the thatched shop
on the left is nowadays a private
house, The Old House. Beyond
is another thatched cottage, The
White House. Behind the wide
verge with its young trees is the
churchyard of Holy Trinity. The
dilapidated church was rebuilt
in 1827 to a Georgian design of
the then vicar, Thomas Scott. His
son, George Gilbert, was born in
the vicarage in 1811, and later
became one of England's greatest
Victorian architects; his work
includes the Foreign Office, St
Pancras Station Hotel, and the
Albert Memorial, all in London.
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Gawcott, Main Street c1960 (ref. G229006) | Moving further east along Main Street,
we reach the junction with New Inn
Lane on the right. Behind the telegraph
pole is the small mid 19th-century
Methodist chapel with its porch and
ornamental bargeboards to the gable.
Opposite is a row of cottages; the
left-hand one is called Lace Cottage,
a reminder of an important cottage
industry for women hereabouts, which
supplemented the men's meagre
agricultural labourers' wages.
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Grendon Underwood, Crucks c1960 (ref. G230005) | The name of this cottage is a reminder of a very important medieval and late
medieval building tradition in this area, possibly associated with the abundance of
oak trees in the Bernwood Forest and its surroundings. A cruck is best described
as an A-frame, a pair of massive timbers that run from the ground to the apex
of the roof, usually cut from the same tree. Long Crendon has over 20 cruck
houses, an unusual concentration, but many of the villages round about have a few
- Haddenham has four and Grendon Underwood two, for example. Often hidden
behind render, as here, they are still being discovered.
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Grendon Underwood, Main Street c1965 (ref. G230007) | Grendon Underwood is a long, straggling village, with the gaps filled steadily from
the 1950s onwards. This view is at the less interesting east end of Main Road,
away from the parish church, the moat, the Georgian rectory and Shakespeare
Farmhouse, where the bard is reputed to have stayed. Attridge's (right) is now
Grendon Stores, and the plot in the foreground now has a 1980s house, a better
design than the dull bungalows on the left of about 1960.
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Hanslope, High Street c1955 (ref. H374003) | The last view in the book looks south-east along the High Street past the long terrace of 1850s cottages on the
left. Market Square is in the far distance. The church spire appears to be behind the houses on the right, but in
fact it is well south of them. The Shell garage on the right has given way to a close of 1980s houses. Beyond are
several good 18th- and early 19th-century houses.
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Lavendon, the Post Office c1965 (ref. L201024) | Looking across from within
the churchyard is the post
office, which occupies
an 18th-century stone
house. The steel windows
replaced the original leaded
casements in about 1960,
and have themselves
been replaced by timber
windows ten years ago.
That was when the building
ceased to be a post office
and became a private
house.
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Lavendon, the Parish Church c1965 (ref. L201020) | The busy A428 Northampton to Bedford
Road winds through the village from
west to east, curving round the parish
churchyard's rubblestone retaining
walls. This is the furthest north part of
Buckinghamshire, beyond the stone-built
market town of Olney, and not far from
the Northamptonshire border. West of
the village, in the quiet valley of a stream,
was a small abbey founded in 1154, and
long-vanished. Lavendon's parish church
was old even then, for its nave, part of
the chancel and the west tower below the
belfry are all late Anglo-Saxon, probably
early 11th century.
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