Olney, Clifton Reynes and Emberton

Church of St Peter and Paul

Another walk in the series that Merv and I are doing of southern towns. Previous ones include Ledbury,  Banbury and Tewkesbury. It is a bit surprising to be north of Milton Keynes and still be in the South East and to think that Olney is is in tame county as Eton - I guess they are the most northerly and southerly points.

Guided by a town trail, we started at the southern edge of the town and headed into the churchyard of St Pete and Paul. The tall 14th century spire would turn out to be visible for miles around. The church is basically 14th century with 19th century restoration by Sir George Gilbert Scott. I did rather like the colourful Victorian stained glass in the east window.

John Newton, the curate between 1764 and 1780 and the poet William Cowper wrote the Olney Hymns which include the celebrated "Amazing Grace".

Following the town trail we headed through the cemetery and curved round to enter the triangular Market Place, where on the left is the Cowper and Newton Museum. Cowper lived there with his "companion" Mary Unwin. The building dates from about 1700.

We walked up the wide side street and Pevsner points out the feature which makes it so distinctive: there are no side streets. The building are also reasonably uniform in age and size and there are lots of trees.

 On the right we noted the Bucks Lace Industry building, now a private house: "an ugly but interesting building of 1928" (Pevsner). Lace making was an important cottage industry in Olney in the past.

On the left was The Picture House, presumably the former cinema.

Further up on the left was the fantastic Orchard House (1904). Pevsner describes it as Arts and Crafts Neo-Baroque. I see it as an example of English art nouveau, albeit maybe not the finest.

Here is a bit more detail of the flower motifs and the stained glass.

 At the end of the High St is, rather surprisingly, Town Farm (early 18th century) - which still has farm buildings, looking  bit derelict, behind it.

We now retraced our steps and continued down the long High St almost to the church. We noted the how well maintained the buildings, the number of small local shops and businesses (and the absence of empty shoes or ones used as Charity shops), and the relatively small number of national chains.

On the right thee was a very fine terrace of double fronted houses - not that common.

 We passed to the side of the church and reached the bank of the Great Ouse at Mill House and were immediately walking across open grassland.

Soon we reached a point where the river turned north and we crossed a small bridge to continue on to
Clifton Reynes. There was a nice view back, reminiscent I thought of Constable's painting of Salisbury Cathedral.

There was a lovely view along the river too.

 Clifton Reynes is only a hamlet but it has a striking church Norman tower and 13th-14th century battlements and a pub which served us a very nice lunch from a surprisingly long menu.

We now navigated our way across a large grassy expanse to reach a road just near Emberton. There was another nice view of the river, meadows and church spire.

 We crossed the A509 and entered the village to see a simple neo-Gothic clock tower in the middle of the road. It was erected in 1846 by the then vicar in memory of his late wife.

Further along the same road we came to the church of All Saints, a very pleasing building of the early 14th century.

The road ended with a small council estate (but it looked as though the right to buy had been widely exercised) and then across field paths to enter Emberton Country Park, a very nicely done repurposing of some disused gravel pits.

We were pleased to spot a heron as we meanderd through the park to emerge on the A507 a short was south of where we had parked.

Conditions: quite warm. We were pleased that we managed to avoid some passing showers.

Distance: about 7.5 miles.

Map: Explorer 207 (Newport Pagnell and Northampton South).

Rating: three and a half stars.

Waddesdon Manor

Waddesdon Manor: Entrance Front

Waddesdon is one of those places we had long intended to visit and we were stimulated into making a trip there by a piece in House and Garden describing a new house built in the park, Flint House. We were lucky to find Waddesdon open at this time of year and this turned out to be because there is a big tradition of celebrating Christmas.

Waddesdon Manor dates mostly from 1877-1883 and was built for Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild in the style of a French chateau. The architect was Hippolyte Destailleur who had worked on the restoration of real French chateaux, and so knew what he was doing. It was bequeathed to the National Trust in 1957, but at some point the Trust leased it back to the Rothschild Foundation.

A shuttle bus service takes people from the massive car park, but we set out on foot towards the Manor, and having found the location of Flint House on the Waddesdon website, knew we had to turn off to the left after a short way. This gave us a nice initial view of Waddesdon.

We followed a tarmac track and soon admired this beautiful stand of trees.

We passed Windmill Hill, the headquarters of the Rothschild Foundation (Stephen Marshall Architects, 2010) ...

 ... and headed downhill to find the splendid Flint House sitting in the centre of a wide valley. It was commissioned by Jacob de Rothschild from Charlotte Skene Catling in 2015. The house is clad in knapped flints set in black mortar which gradually give way to smooth grey squares towards the top. A small annex sits facing the main house out of shot to the left.

We headed back uphill past Windmill Hill, admiring the hyper-realistic horse and cart statue on the ridge, to re-trace our steps to the main path to the Manor.

We passed a nice grove of trees.

On regaining the main path we headed uphill to pass the Garden facade. This faces south and looked lovely in the early afternoon sunshine. The ground floor is obscured by the slope, but actually this was a great benefit as it was anyway blocked by a whole series of wooden huts used for the Christmas Fair.

Heading round the right side of the Manor to the Entrance Front (which of course faces north, and which explains why the picture at the head of this post is so dark), we found this entertaining installation, one of a pair. These  sculptures in the form of giant candlesticks are called Lafite and are the work of Portugese sculptor Joana Vasconcelos. Closer inspection reveals that they are made from 1000 magnums of Château Lafite Rothschild (Château Lafite was bought by Baron James de R in 1868.) The inspiration for the work was apparently Marcel Duchamp's bottle holders of 1914.

Elsewhere in the grounds was a light installation, Field of Light, by Bruce Monro, which consists of 9,000 glass spheres which light up as darkness falls. It sounds lovely and we regretted not being able to stay until dusk.

Round the corner was the cast iron Aviary of 1889. It put me in mind of Otto Wagner's art nouveau pavilions in Vienna.

We did also make a brief visit inside the Manor. Unfortunately, as we saw it, the interior had been subjected to a Christmas makeover, with seemingly every room containing a monster, fully decorated Christmas tree. It was cluttered, crowded and basically horrific. Of course, everybody else had presumably come to see just this and seemed well pleased.

Finally, we walked back to the car park. On leaving the grounds and heading through the village I spotted these almshouses.

They were originally built in 1642 by Arthur Goodwin but were renovated in 1892 by, guess who? Yes, Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild. Modernisation was financed in 1972 by Mrs James A de R.

Conditions: quite cold, but clear and sunny.

Distance: we walked about six miles all told.

Rating: four and half stars. A great day out.

Old Amersham and Chalfont St Giles

The Market Hall

I met my friend Chris for a Buckinghamshire walk at a sort of midway point between where we each live. We started at the imposing Market Hall in Old Amersham. It was built in 1682 and renovated in 1911. We noticed a sign inside the covered area "Commit no nuisance" and this was apparently over the entrance to the town lock-up. It put me in mind of Google's "Do no evil".

We headed southeast and followed a gently climbing path across fields, with a nice view back towards Old Amersham.

The path continues through woods and across fields to reach the splendidly named Upper Bottom House Farm, where we were charmed by the very young calves.

We climbed a small hill and came down the other side into the charming village of Chalfont St Giles, complete with Norman church, duck pond, village green and old houses.

We decided we must see its most famous building, Milton's Cottage and walked up the High St past this lovely former farmhouse ...

... to reach the 16th century Milton's Cottage, where the great poet wrote Paradise Lost.

As we were taking photos, a woman who was passing by very kindly suggested that we would get a better view by standing on her nearby doorstep. The result, above, is to my mind much better that the picture on the official Milton's Cottage website, which, as my picture would have been, is dominated by the large chimney flue. Thank you again!

We returned to the centre and followed the South Bucks Way along the Misbourne Valley back to Old Amersham. This was a pleasant stroll, but the river, presumably very small, was entirely invisible.

Conditions: cloudy and cool.

Distance: 6.5 miles.

From: Pathfinder Guide 25, Chilterns and Thames Valley.

Map: Explorer 172 (Chiltern Hills East).

Rating: three and a half stars.

Thame and Long Crendon

Thame High Street

We lunched in Thame a couple of times when we were doing the Oxfordshire Way. It seemed a pretty place and today I decided it was time to take a proper look. I discovered this walk around the centre of Thame rather mysteriously on the Long Crendon website and then found a leaflet of walks from Thame on the Southern Oxfordshire website.

I started at the large car park near the end of the upper High St. Thame was an important market town from the 13th century onwards and this is where the market was once held. I walked down to the High Street itself, which contains a pleasing variety of old houses and pubs, mainly 15th-17th century, with a few Georgian and Victorian additions. One of the landmarks is the Town Hall of 1883. It is currently hidden by plastic sheeting and I had to go round the back to get any sort of picture. I rather like it, but Pevsner is rather scathing: "a feeble design in Jacobethan style".

Towards the end of the High St there is a particularly fine half-timbered house: The Cruke dates from the 15th century. The gable end is especially pleasing, although the cruck timbers are from a cottage that was previously joined to this house.

A little further on, on the corner of Church St, are the former almshouses, founded by Lord Williams in the 1550s. They are now private houses.

Just along the street is the former Grammar School, also founded by Lord Williams, in 1558. What you see from the road was once the master's house, with the school room being at the back. The building is now offices.

Next you come to the fine 15th century Tithe Barn.

And just beyond it is the imposing cruciform St Mary's church. It dates from the 13th century, but in Pevsner's view was over restored at the end of the 19th century.

Across the road at the back of the church is The Prebendal, strangely not even mentioned on the town walk. (A prebendary was a member of the clergy of a cathedral who received the income of a particular parish.) This particular example dates back to 1140, although the gatehouse range was constructed only in1930. A look through the gate revealed some church buildings, one of whoich was probably the chapel of about 1250 described by Pevsner.

At this point I left the circuit of the town to walk out to Long Crendon, first crossing the pretty river Thame.

After crossing the busy A418, and entering Buckinghamshire, you head across fields along the Thame Valley Walk. There were plenty of Small Tortoisehell butterflies here and this dramatic fallen tree. Normally the roots seem to come up as well, but this one was just snapped off at ground level.

You reach a minor road and turn right to walk up the hill into Long Crendon. I loved this sight of this willow tree high above a wall.

At the top you pass Long Crendon Grange, a 15th century building entered through an imposing gatehouse of the same period.

Further on, the High Street, busy at first, becomes a quiet street of thatched cottages.

At the end there is the beautiful group of St Mary's church - similar in appearance to the one in Thame - and the half-timbered Court House. It dates from the 15th century and is now owned by the National Trust. The upper storey is one large room with a small adjoining one.

A path by the church led across fields and then through an industrial estate back to Thame, where I rejoined the town walk passing some more nice old houses opposite the cricket pitch. Beyond the pitch, a different view of St Mary's church which reveals a sort of small tower on one coroner of the main tower - perhaps a staircase.

I did a bit a googling to see if I could find out more, without success. I did discover however that former Bee Gee Robin Gibb is buried here and that the church gets a three star rating on Trip Advisor. I can feel an old fogey comment coming on.

There was just time for one final surprise. On the way back into the town centre a short detour revealed this lovely house, which rather surprisingly was the Bishop's Palace. It was used by the Bishop on his visits.

Conditions: warm and sunny.

Distance: 7 miles (5 miles for the triangular walk to Long Crendon, two around the town).

Map: Explorer 180 (Oxford, Witney and Woodstock).

Rating: four stars.