Attractions at Buckinghamshire
Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park is a stately home in the county of Milton Keynes England, about 50 miles north of London. It is situated near to the town of Bletchley. During World War II, Bletchley Park was the site of the United Kingdom's efforts to break Axis ciphers, particularly the Enigma and Lorenz ciphers used by Nazi Germany. The Government Code and Cypher School (GC & CS), the intelligence bureau responsible for interception and decryption of foreign transmissions, moved into the Park in 1938. The radio station constructed in the park for its use was given the codename "Station X" -- this term is often erroneously applied to the code-breaking efforts at Bletchley as a whole. Station X was soon moved south to Whaddon Hall, to prevent any attention being drawn to the Bletchley site.
Early visitors described themselves as members of Captain Ridley's shooting party. Later, the code-name for the project was "ULTRA". Among the famous mathematicians and cryptanalysts working there, perhaps the most influential and best-known was Alan Turing. In 1943, the special-purpose electronic computer Colossus was designed at Bletchley Park. This computer was used to crack the Lorenz cipher. At the height of efforts it is thought that more than 10,000 people were working at Bletchley Park during the war.
The Bletchley Park effort was comparable in influence to other WW II-era technological efforts, such as the crytographic work at Arlington Hall, development of microwave radar at MIT's Radiation Lab and the Manhattan Project's development of nuclear weapons. At the end of the war, much of the equipment used and its blueprints were destroyed by order of Churchill. Though thousands of people were involved in the decoding efforts, the participants remained silent for decades about what they had done during the war; it was only in the 1970s that the work at Bletchley Park was revealed to the general public. The Bletchley Park trust has been founded to further the maintenance of the site as a museum devoted to the codebreakers.
Claydon House
Claydon is a Georgian home notable for its association with Florence Nightingale, and its truly remarkable interior carved decoration. The house itself is an unpretentious 18th century rectangle in the classical style, with a large porticoed entry. If the exterior is unremarkable, the interior is a real stunner. The rococco decoration is probably the most striking in all of England. A series of rooms are embellished in Chinese and Gothic style, with incredibly ornate carvings by Luke Lightwood. The effect almost defies description, as Lightfoot let his eccentric brilliance run wild. More restrained by comparison is the wonderful plasterwork of Joseph Rose.
Rose and Lightfoot were employed by Lord Verney, who transformed his Jacobean family estate into the more fashionable Georgian home we see today. Verney's creation sits on a rise looking over peaceful parkland, and is flanked by a wonderful medieval church. Within the church is a huge monument to Sir Edmund Verney, killed at the Battle of Edgehill in 1642. In the 19th century the second Baronet Verney married Parthenope, sister of Florence Nightingale. Florence was a frequent visitor to Claydon, and her bedroom on the second floor contains many of her personal effects and momentoes, including letters, clothing, and her travelling communion set.
Waddesdon Manor
Waddesdon was begun by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild in 1874. The Rotschild banking clan seemed drawn to the Vale of Aylesbury in the 19th century (witness Ascott House), yet for their house designs they turned to their European heritage. Waddesdon looks like nothing so much as a French chateau dropped down in the middle of an English landscape. French architect Gabriel-Hippolyte Destailleur was employed to design a huge hilltop house looking out over pastoral landscape to the Chilterns. The house of Bath stone is a mixture of French traditional chateau design elements, with round turreted towers soaring high above a mansard roof. A broad avenue leads up the hill to the house, and formal terraced gardens behind the house open out into parkland.
The building of Waddesdon was a massive project, taking 15 years to complete. Water had to be brought in froim 14 miles away, and a special steam-powered tramway was built to haul building materials up the hill. The exterior of the house is impressive enough, but it is ably matched by the opulent interior. Built in the style of 18th century France, even the panelling was imported from Parisian houses. Richly decorated rooms are augmented by plastered and painted ceilings. The ornate rooms act as a setting for a remarkable collection of fine art, furniture, ceramics, and carpets. To pick out only one of numerous prize furniture pieces, there is an inlaid writing table crafted for Marie Antoinette. Look for the carpet commissioned by Louis XIV for the Louvre; it is nearly 1/4 mile in length!
Surprisingly, amidst all this French opulence, there is an excellent collection of 18th century English portraits, including Gainsborough's Pink Boy, and 10 works by Reynolds. There are also a variety of Dutch paintings, including The Garden of Love, by Rubens.
Stowe Landscape Gardens
The National Trust calls Stowe "Britain's largest work of art", and they may be right. The gardens and parkland at Stowe were one of the first of a new style of landscaped parkland that evolved into what we now call the English landscape garden. The gardens at Stowe were begun in the early 18th century by Sir Richard Temple, Viscount Cobham, with the aid of Charles Bridgeman, William Kent, and later, Capability Brown. Bridgeman popularised the practice of using a sunken ditch, or "ha-ha", rather than a visible fence or wall. This had the effect of opening up the gardens to the surrounding fields, creating a sense of unity with the pastoral surroundings, so that even the sheep grazing in nearby fields became a part of the overall landscape garden "design".
Kent expanded on the work begun by Bridgeman by adding curvilinear avenues interspersed with architectural features such as the Temple of British Worthies, a kind of ode in stone to the "best of Britain". The gardens are replete with temples, arches, bridges, and allegorical statements built into the landscape. There are peaceful woodland walks opening out to planned vistas with monuments as a focal point. Stowe must rank as one of England's great contributions to garden design, and the influence of the ideas brought into practice here influenced English gardens for centuries.
Boarstall Tower
Boarstall Tower is all that remains of the fortified moated house built here by John de Handlo in the early 14th century. The three-storey tower with hexagonal turrets rising from each corner of the battlemented roofline was the only entrance to his carefully guarded property. The surviving arrow loops give an indication of the formidable prospect the tower once presented. Boarstall Tower is the only medieval military building left in Buckinghamshire and the only test of its defences occurred during the Civil War when it was garrisoned for the King. The building was besieged by Parliamentarian troops and surrendered on 10 June 1646.
Boarstall Tower was altered in the 16th and 17th century and today the Tudor and Jacobean windows and octagonal chimneys rising almost to the height of the turrets, give the building a delightfully domestic appearance. The beautiful room which runs the length of the third floor is lit by large 17th century windows. The room was probably once used as a dormitory for the men of the establishment but nowadays it is used occasionally for chamber concerts. The tower is now approached over a two-arched brick and cobble bridge.
Ascott House
Ascott was little more than a half-timbered farmhouse built in the Jacobean period when it was purchased by the de Rothschild family in 1876. Over the next 75 years the house was enlarged and remodelled as a showcase for the family collections of Oriental porcelain, paintings, and fine furniture. The house is set in enjoyable gardens, composed of an unusual mix of formal Victorian and 20th century informal plantings, a mix of trees, shrubs, and informal walks. The most striking feature of the gardens is a large topiary sundial.
Chicheley Hall
Chicheley Hall was built between 1719-1723 for the Chester family. It was constructed of warm red brick with contrasting pale coloured stone pillars, windows and doors. The house passed through many hands, being used at one time by the military. On another occasion it housed a school. In 1952 the property was purchased by the 2nd Earl Beatty who restored the house as a comfortable home. His father, the 1st Earl, was a famous naval commander, later First Sea Lord and is best known for his part in the Battle of Jutland in 1916. Lord Beatty's study displays his naval collection including paintings, photographs and copies of his numerous decorations. Other rooms on view are the elegant entrance hall, the drawing room with rich oak panelling and the library. The Jacobean Room has a display of fragments of the original 16th century house that stood on the site. Chicheley Hall, one of the finest 18th century houses in England, is still in the hands of the Beatty family.
Mentmore Towers
Mentmore Towers was built in 1855 for Baron Meyer Amschel de Rothschild. He commissioned Sir Joseph Paxton and his future son-in-law G H Stokes to design the house. Although Paxton was not a trained architect he was a great favourite of the Rothschild family who were probably impressed by the Crystal Palace he built for the Great Exhibition of 1851 and his work at Chatsworth. Paxton designed a vast building in Elizabethan style with great windows and a turreted roofline. The grand romantic mansion was a reflection of the immense wealth and power of the Rothchilds during the Victorian era. At the end of the 19th century Mentmore Towers passed into the hands of Lord Rosebery. At that time the house contained a superb collection of fine furniture and works of art. Lord Rosebery made the house a magnificent centre of social life for the rich and influential. In the 1970s the contents of the house were put up for sale. Although there was a public outcry at the possible loss to the nation of many important items, the auction went ahead and raised over 6,000,000. The house was sold later to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and is now the headquarters of his University of Natural Law. At the present time the house is not open to the public.
Hughenden Manor
Hughenden was a Georgian estate when politician and author Benjamin Disraeli purchased it in 1848. Curiously, Disraeli himself was not financially able to support the estate, but he thought it a necessary part of his political career to be a landowner. He was able to borrow the money from Lord George Bentinck. Under Disraeli's care Hughenden was transformed into a Victorian red-brick house decorated with fanciful pinnacles. Hughenden was Disraeli's home from 1848 until his death in 1881. The house interior underwent many changes after Disraeli's death, but several rooms have been restored, with many of Disraeli's personal belongings and mementoes displayed as they would have been during his lifetime. The gardens surrounding the house werre originally created by Disraeli's wife Mary Anne. Though altered after her death, the gardens have now been restored to closely match the original design. There are extensive walks through pleasant woodland near the house. |
|
