Abroad in Buckinghamshire

[abroadinbuckinghamshire]

Aladdin’s Cave gallery opens at Waddesdon Manor

(Above, Charles Rothschild’s microscope and 1st-century cameo of Augustus Caesar’s grandson.)

Why would I choose a microscope used by one of the naturalists of the family  as the first exhibit I looked for in the new Aladdin’s Cave of a gallery at #Waddesdon Manor, celebrating the Rothschilds as collectors of extraordinary objects?

Because entomologist and flea expert Charles Rothschild was behind one  the most unlikely of natural history exhibits you are likely to see. Fleas. They are at  the nearby Natural History Museum in Tring, part of a collection set up by his brother Walter. I have revisited it so many times. Go, we tell our visitors, and  don't miss the dressed fleas. Yes, literally wearing clothes, acquired in Mexico.

The microscope is one of  300 or so rarely seen objects from two millennia in the Buckinghamshire house's new permanent gallery,  A Rothschild Treasury, which opened in September 2019.

They range from a 1st-century cameo of Augustus Caesar’s grandson, via jewellery given as presents by Queen Victoria, to objects bearing the Nazi inventory numbers  they were marked with when they were seized during the Second World War.

Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild built Waddesdon at the end of the 19th century in the style of a French Renaissance château.  Many things in and about it are on a grand scale. This is the opposite, an intimate display. It is densely  displayed and beautifully lit, in bespoke museum-style cases in two relatively small rooms in the house, formerly the servants’ quarters

The objects, dating from 100AD to the 20th century, all  have personal connections to family members past and present. This long line of remarkable Rothschild collectors continues to collect to this day.

We see paintings, textiles, books and manuscripts, gold and silver boxes. There are objects made from rare and precious materials, including spectacular jewellery and intricate clocks.  20 objects still bear the Nazi inventory numbers applied when they were confiscated from the French Rothschilds.

More than three-quarters of the items are on loan from the house's private collection and are on public display for the first time. They have been cleaned and, where necessary, conserved, which has brought new knowledge and  further discoveries.

A Rothschild Treasury reflects not only the Rothschild passion for collecting, but also the tradition of the Schatzkammer. These were treasure rooms celebrating the riches of the earth and natural world, first created in European courts in the 16th-century. Duly inspired, Baron Ferdinand created his own ‘Renaissance Museum’ in Waddesdon.  This collection was subsequently bequeathed to the British Museum as the Waddesdon Bequest.

Waddesdon promises  "an intense experience – as if stumbling upon an Aladdin’s Cave."  Entering A Rothschild Treasury, visitors see  a 'glowing wall of opulent, colourful, alluring objects, different shapes, different sizes, and different materials, some set against a backdrop of embroidered textile. The sense of sumptuousness builds inside the small gilded, barrel-vaulted room, lined on either side with lit cases containing a cornucopia of objects, precious and intriguing.'

All the objects have an intimate connection to the Rothschild family, from Baron Ferdinand’s watch chain and Miss Alice’s seal, to classical coins collected by James de Rothschild and the microscope (above) used by the present Lord Rothschild’s grandfather, Charles.

Highlights include an amber casket made in the 17th-century in the Baltic, a mounted nautilus shell that belonged to the  collector William Beckford, an 18th-century Mughal jade vase encrusted with precious stones and the Nelme Cup, a unique gold standing cup made in England in 1727. The tradition of collecting extraordinary objects continues today.  An example is a rare Italian 17th-century silver basin, added recently by the present generation and on public display for the first time.

The Rothschilds were, and continue to be, active in sponsoring archaeological excavations. Finds included here are a 1st-century cameo of Augustus Caesar’s grandson, Gaius, and a 2nd-century openwork gold engagement ring.

Pippa Shirley, Head of Collections at Waddesdon Manor, says “The Rothschilds were collectors extraordinaire, and this small, intense room is a microcosm of an aspect of their taste, curiosity and discernment. But behind the beauty of the objects themselves is something more. Baron Ferdinand described  what drove him as a collector was what he called ‘association’ – the histories and connections of everything he acquired. This is nowhere more true than in A Rothschild Treasury, where every object tells a story – of its making, of its passage through time and of the family thanks to whom we can now enjoy it.”

        Waddesdon Manor was built at the end of the 19th century by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild in the style of a French early 16th-century château. Baron Ferdinand was an inspired collector and the house was designed to showcase his  collection of French 18th-century furniture, Sèvres porcelain, English portraits and other decorative arts. In 1957,  to ensure its future in perpetuity, Waddesdon was bequeathed to the National Trust. The Rothschild family continues to run Waddesdon through a family charitable trust under the chairmanship of Lord Rothschild. More here.

@WaddesdonManor on Twitter and waddesdonmanor_nt on Instagram.

[abroadinbuckinghamshire]

Waddesdon Manor Christmas Carnival

The young King Louis XIV appeared for the first time as the Sun King at the performance of an all-night ballet danced at the French court in 1653. Now that dazzling production has inspired one of the most spectacular outdoor Christmas displays in Britain in 2018.

Students at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama have created an eight-minute tableau, projected onto the façade of the 19th-century Stables at Waddesdon Manor, just north of Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire. It is the most striking of several outdoor light installations they put together for the manor’s annual Christmas Carnival. It revolves around the 19th Century house, built appropriately in the style of a French châteaux, and lit for the season like like a fairy-tale castle.

They were given access to the manor’s collections and encouraged to chose what inspired them, and respond creatively. For the Stables projection, which features characters from the 1653 Ballet Royale de la Nuit, they drew on illustrations in a contemporary manuscript which shows the sets and costumes of the fabulous production at the French court, where Louis made his entrance.

The dizzying parade of images, soaring and tumbling across the walls, also contains objects, architecture and gardens from Waddesdon as well as the Rothschild family, which still administers the National Trust-owned house,. There is a cameo performance by Walter Rothschild, the famous naturalist, riding his giant Galapagos tortoise.

The students digitally mapped the Stables’ 170 square metre façade, and created their production to fit, using six large format projectors for a digital spectacle in the spirit of the Ballet de la Nuit, one designed "to amaze, delight and impress.”

The Stables projection is one of three compositions at the Manor created by the Guildhall School students; the others are an outdoor audio trail featuring characters found in the manor’s collection, and an immersive walk-through tunnel of light. The music and soundscape heard throughout is composed by musicians at the school, and recorded by alumni and current students.  

Guildhall School of Music and Drama is an international community of young musicians, actors and production artists based in the City of London. It is a leader of creative and professional practice, promoting innovation, experiment and research. Undergraduates on the Video Design for Live Performance and the Production Arts programmes worked on the Waddesdon project.

The first thing you see when you leave the shuttle bus from the car park is the Christmas Fair, spread on both sides of the vast drive in front of the floodlit north face of the Manor, with its 20ft Christmas trees. It draws together 86 exhibitors, housed in wooden chalets and selling good quality decorations, crafts and festive foods. The fair continues until 16 December, a week longer than before.

It's quite a steep walk down to the Stables, although you can pick up the shuttlebus back to the car park from there. The most accessible light show is the Aviary Garden light trail - which starts at dusk, together with the Stables projection. Find the entrance in the right-hand side, quite close to the house as you face it. It's open until 6pm, Wed-Sun, until 2 Jan 2019.

Lights are becoming more sophisticated, more colourful and cheaper, and this imaginatively composed trail is a spectacular demonstration of what can be done (see photos above), with trees and bushes lit up in a rainbow of colours. 

Waddesdon Manor was built in the 1880s by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild in the style of a French early 16th-century château, as a retreat where he could entertain friends and family. The house was designed to showcase the Baron's collection of English and French paintings, French 18th-century furniture, Sèvres porcelain, and other decorative arts. 

In 1957, to ensure its future, Waddesdon was bequeathed to the National Trust. The Rothschild family continues to run the house and estate on behalf of the Trust.

The one indoor Christmas production is the seasonal display in rooms in the the East Wing and the Bachelors’ Wing, inspired by books and pieces of art from the collection. Rooms are dressed to evoke the glitz and glamour of the festive season, and recall Christmas celebrations in the 1930s and 40s, when the Rothschilds welcomed villagers, staff, friends and family to share in the celebrations. They feature ten 15ft trees adorned with 10,000 fairy lights and 3,000 baubles. 

It might seem churlish to make any adverse comment about this thoroughly rewarding and uplifting winter occasion. But I have one point to make. I was disappointed with the choice of music to accompany the display inside the house. The soundtrack seem to be dominated by favourite Christmas carols, with a snatch of the Snowman too. So we have these striking and sumptuously decorated rooms, but to the accompaniment of  music we know far too well. I wanted something more original. Could not some less well-known seasonal music have been curated to complement that feast for our eyes?

But that's a minor quibble. It'd been a rewarding, spirit-lifting day out, and with free entry, if you are a National Trust member, and skip the house visit. Waddesdon Manor deserves its place as a major country house winter attraction.

Footnote.

This is been an interesting, and unusual, visit. We walked to the manor by the new Waddesdon Greenway - just over 4km on a dry underfoot, better than many potholed roads, surface from the terminus of the line from London Marylebone, Aylesbury Vale Parkway station. The combined footpath and cycleway, part funded by the government, opened in September 2018.

Waddesdon is a big estate with an ample car park as much as half a mile from the house itself. There is a good, well lit footpath with a woodchip surface, although it was muddy in places on our visit.

Waddesdon Manor Christmas Carnival: 11am-6pm, Wed-Sun - 2 Jan 2019.

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/waddesdon-manor/features/christmas-at-waddesdon-manor

[abroadinbuckinghamshire]

Walking the Waddesdon Greenway.

It is a drab day for a walk in the country. We set off from the station at the end of the line, Aylesbury Vale Parkway, under gloomy, grey clouds, with a spiteful drizzle in our faces. 

This is going to be a rare rural excursion. No danger of getting lost.  A sound surface underfoot and no creaky gates or treacherous, broken stiles to negotiate. And we even knew how long the walk will take us – 60 minutes; and, by bike, 20 minutes.

That is the giveaway. We are on one of the nation’s most superior combined walkways – footpath hardly does it justice – and cycle ways, although on our outing in the first week of December we only saw a single cyclist (I assume he or she - it was too dark to tell - was hurrying home from work) during our 6 miles of there and back walking.

This was no worthy but ultimately arbitrary route through the countryside, justified only in terms of getting you out of about, away from the traffic. One of our party had set off Marylebone Station in London an hour earlier. The Waddesdon Greenway, to give it its official name, is a £1.3 m government-funded link between the terminus of the line through what used to be known as John Betjeman’s Metroland, and Waddesdon Manor, 4 miles further north.

The National Trust-owned Manor has emerged in just a few years as one of the principal big house destinations in the south of England. And, in December, with its spectacular Christmas Carnival light show and Christmas Fair, it is arguably the premier outdoor seasonal lure.

We walk to the end of the car park directly outside the new and very well appointed Aylesbury Vale Parkway station, and turn under a little bridge to begin our walk.

An information board suggests an hour's walking for the path’s 4 km length. (There are display boards next to seats every so often along the way, with useful detail specific to the location.)

There is one brief initial stretch where the way becomes a small section of the old, now superseded and unused, A41, Akeman Street, which, in its new form, runs noisily alongside for a short while. Otherwise the Greenway is entirely new, made with the cooporation of local landowners and volunteers, who have planted many trees. The volunteers’ input into many aspects of the work was invaluable; the government grant did not cover the whole cost.

The Greenway wouldn't win a place on any "Best 10 country walks" List, unless there was a category for “Best walk and cycle way from a railway station to a nearby village”. But for “Footpath with no squelchy, splashy-after-days-of-rain sections”, it would take the prize.

This is Aylesbury Vale, a gentle stretch of countryside directly north of its namesake town, a land of quiet farmland with little occasional hills, stretching north for many miles until it folds into the South Midlands. It's a reticent scenery, where you savour such small details as the single tree over a small watercourse too slight to even have a name. Or a field full of inquisitive sheep.

Just as I despair of finding any interesting countryside detail to put in my notebook – apart from a flock of passing fieldfares and an inquisitive red kite - I become aware in the middle distance of some fluorescent-jacketed workers up to something. Their straight, wide lines of activity are going to strike our path a quarter of a mile ahead. This isn’t agricultural work. It’s incongruously major. 

It becomes clear. This is early work in what is going to become one of the biggest engineering projects in Europe. The high speed rail line from London to Birmingham, HS2, is going to pass through the Buckinghamshire countryside here, and these workers appear to be planting trees along its path. I recall that there is another purpose for the Greenway; this is the first part of what is intended to be a route for walkers and cyclists weaving like a vine along with the entire length of the high-speed railway.

We walk on, making a brisk pace on the long straight stretches. The path is slowly climbing, but nothing too strenuous. It's peaceful and utterly remote. There were few signs of agricultural life, apart from an out of the ordinary farm building. I assume it is part of the Rothschild estate, which we are now entering. 

Eventually we reach a main road, and the spell is broken. Just across it the Greenway corkscrews through a spinney, crosses a little bridge and we see before us a truly massive carpark. At the top of a hill is Waddesdon Manor, one of the family seats of the Rothschild family and administered by them on behalf of the owners, the National Trust.

The Greenway forks here. One branch curls away right, to the village of Waddesdon; the other head strikes straight on to the entrance complex to the house and gardens.

Today the vast majority of visitors will arrive by car on the busy A41. (The property does provide a free bus from the railway station in the summer.) We joined the throng outside the house for the spectacular light show, in several different places. It was quite dark by the time we left, around 5 o’clock.

Our December day at Waddesdon concludes with us retracing our steps along the Greenway, in the dark. I suspect very few visitors to the Manor today will take this option. My guess is just the four of us (out of thousands). But it is perfectly safe.

Fortunately the countryside is never really dark, even on a cloudy evening. Light permeated out from brightly-illuminated Aylesbury, three miles distant. And there was a bonus on this high-spec path and cycleway. Lights had been embedded in the path's surface – I assume they were solar powered, because we were far away from a conventional electricity power source – adding guidance at every change of direction, with red lights marking hazards such as the road crossing. 

We were lucky – it stayed dry, and we were back at Aylesbury Parkway in about an hour after an easy, trouble-free walk, during which we saw only that cyclist (probably) commuting home. Our companion was in good time for her train back to Marylebone. We recovered our car. It cost £3 to park, and it’s free on Sundays.

[abroadinbuckinghamshire]

Perfect little world where time stands still

(Photos by the author, December 2018)

It's one of the most famous miniature attractions in the country, a compressed, idealised corner of an English county, closed off from the real-world, and untroubled by the internal combustion engine, which even in the 1930s, when this tableau is set, was beginning to mar the rural idyll.

Bekonscot Model Village is engagingly old-fashioned – the website refers to a timewarp. And that is its overwhelming charm. There are milk churns and horse-drawn ploughs, shopkeepers in white coats, even some escaped convicts

There is a village cricket game, albeit on grass that's far too long, even on December the 1st. There's a garden party, a circus, a port (so not precisely landlocked Bucks then). Bekonscot Model Village and Railway, its official long name, is the world’s original, and oldest, model village. It opened in 1929. 

The model railway, with its many finely detailed stations, is huge. Serious express trains shuttle urgently around, overtaking diligent little stopping services, their carriages and locos in a variety of hues, which a 1930s trainspotter would instantly identify. Scale this railway up from its 1:32 gauge – the miniature villages are on a 1:12 scale – and it would be 10 miles long.

It's a wonderful little world, England as it used to be, away from the stress of everyday life, which resumes the minute you walk out of the gate back onto busy Beaconsfield streets.

Bekonscot is the creation of Roland Callingham, a London accountant who lived here with his wife in the 1920s and whose garden this was. The Callinghams used to throw garden parties, attended by society guests out from nearby London for a breath of country air.

In 1928, Mrs Callingham issued an ultimatum: either her husband's indoor model railway went, or she did. The model railway moved outdoors.

Callingham created a village around the tracks (or, more accurately, villages), with buildings based loosely on local properties. They were constructed from memory, photos or imagination. 

Bekonscot Town is the biggest. The other communities are Southpool, Hanton, Splashyng, Evenlode and Epwood. Each has its own character and features; there is a coal mine, a castle, an aerodrome, a dock, a pre-NHS hospital and a racecourse. There are more than 200 buildings, 3,000 inhabitants, 1,000 animals, and hundreds of, fortunately nonpolluting, vehicles.

Precision was never the aim: Bekonscot wasn't meant to be taken seriously. The website again: "it was, and always will be, eccentric, fun and full of character."

Bekonscot through the decades, updating itself progressively. That changed in 1992, when it went from being kept up to date, with all of the latest cars, trains and planes, to reverting to how it'd been in the 1930s. The villages have remained like this ever since, with new and refurbished buildings replacing derelict pieces. 

The original models are old and venerable, crafted from limewood by children in the New Forest. Where appropriate, new replacements made from casts to preserve the originals.

Only the model railway has responded to technological advance. Pieces of signalling equipment inherited from our life-sized railway system are backed up by an automated computer control system. It was programmed by a railway software engineer, who went on to develop signalling for London’s Jubilee Line Extension. 

Each train set carries a radio device, so the computer knows where it is. Trains are set to run all day, without fear of collision, on quite complicated routes. Goods trains and expresses use passing loops to bypass platforms, while local passenger services are sent off to stop everywhere across the extensive garden railway.

Places and features have charmingly composite names, such as the Maryloo Signal Box and Chessnade Zoo, which even has a non-pc chimps’ tea party and elephant ride.

Today, Bekonscot is operated by The Roland Callingham Foundation Charity. It shares its income with charitable organisations –  over £5.5 million has been donated to date, mainly to local charities.

01494 672919

[email protected]

Warwick Road, Beaconsfield,

Buckinghamshire, HP9 2PL

[abroadinbuckinghamshire]

The Christmas Fair and Carnival at Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire is developing into one of the most attractive seasonal visitor experiences in the South of England.

The facade of the manor, built in the style of a French Chateau by the Rothschild family in the 1800s, serves as the backdrop for an impressive projected light show.

Another light display, created by the Guildhall School, is projected onto the Stable. A light trail leads through the gardens, around the Aviary, combining colour, sound and movement.

The Christmas Fair, made up of 80 stalls, featuring local artisan producers and independent traders from around the country, selling Christmas gifts and festive foods, runs for a month (10 November to 16 December, Wednesday to Sunday, 11am-6pm) in the grand ceremonial drive to the backdrop of the floodlit house, while n the house there is a separate Christmas-themed display in decorated rooms.

The Waddesdon Christmas event has grown rapidly over the past 15 years, and this has inevitably lead to a considerable increase in the number of visitors arriving by car. There is a massive new car park, from which they are transported by shuttle buses up to the house.  None of this is particularly good for the environment.

However, Waddesdon Manor, still owned by the Rothschild family  but run in conjunction with the National Trust, is attempting  to reduce the CO2 footprint of visitors, if only so far in a modest way.

It has been running free shuttle buses during the summer from the nearest railway station, Aylesbury Parkway which is about 4 miles away. And it has installed new bicycle shelters for visitors arriving on two wheels. And this winter there is a new way, for both cyclists and walkers, to reach the house from the railway stations in Aylesbury.

In September, 2018, a new combined footway and cycle path, The Waddesdon Greenway,, was opened between Aylesbury Parkway station and Waddesdon Manor.  It's about 5 km long, within the range of the reasonably active walker.  There are discounts when you arrive car-free. Unfortunately those who can't manage 10 km there and back may find it difficult to find return public transport in the winter.

Nevertheless, it's a start.

The car-free link is promoted by Good Journey, https://www.goodjourney.org.uk, whose website shows how to reach various UK’s attractions by train, bus, bike and foot. it is a independent non-for-profit organisation working to boost car-free travel to visitor attractions and venues in the UK.

Waddesdon Manor, Christmas display.

10 Nov – 2 Jan 2019, Wed-Sun Grounds: 11am-6pm. House: 11.30am-6pm, last entry 5.30pm Open Mon 31 Dec & Tue 1 Jan Closed 24-26 Dec

Trains run to Aylesbury and Aylesbury Vale Parkway from London Marylebone. You can also take the train from Oxford and Birmingham, changing in Princes Risborough.

This is my article on the  Greenway https://www.tumblr.com/blog/abroadinbuckinghamshire

[abroadinbuckinghamshire]

Top - New footpath and cycleway in Buckinghamshire, 2018. Photo: the writer.

Below - Waddesdon Greenway. Photo: @Waddesdon_Grnwy

Over the past 30 or 40 years transport infrastructure in the UK has expanded greatly, and disproportionately. Many new roads have been built, and existing roads widened. There have been new airports and runways and terminals to handle an explosion in traffic. And even some new railway lines and cycleways and footpaths, although not so many.

For every pothole in the road, rightly reported as dangerous, I could show you just as many broken down stiles on foot paths, muddy and slippery or overgrown rights-of-way, and dodgy gates that no longer shut. Relatively small sums could put these defects right, but roads have always been the national priority, and obsession.

Grandiose road-building projects still dominate the nation’s wish list. A £1.6 billion M4 bypass in South Wales? The money will be found. £2.6 billion for an Oxford to Cambridge “Expressway”?  It’s in the spending plans.

Schemes such as this will make life easier for millions of people down the years. That’s undeniable. But there is also solid evidence that walking and cycling is good for people’s health. Yet you have to search hard for a new footpath or cycleway of significance. They are being built, but not in big numbers. 

Celebrate

We should, though, celebrate those new schemes that are being completed, with local or national value. Earlier this year (2018) a new footpath was created, with a proper hard surface (although over only half its length, because there wasn’t enough money to make it to that standard throughout), about a kilometre long, to join our village and the next one. Previously people walking between the two places had to brave fast traffic, or walk uncomfortably on an overgrown verge.

The money came from the local “new homes bonus”, a grant paid by central government to councils to reflect and incentivise housing growth in their areas. 

Another scheme close to my home is bigger and rather more exciting. The 4 km, traffic free, Waddesdon Greenway, intended only for walkers and cyclists, from Aylesbury Vale Parkway Station to Waddesdon Manor, was opened on 13th September (2018). Within a few years the new London to Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds HS2 railway will pass either over or under the trail.

 The £1million project was funded by the Department for Transport as part of a strategy to connect rural communities (in this case the village of Waddesdon) to their nearest rail head.The ribbon was cut by transport Minister Jesse Norman, which was a measure of its importance. It almost seems mean-spirited to add that generous public funding was still not sufficient; the trail was completed with the help of volunteers who helped to build two bridges, fill and lay 3,000 sandbags for 25 culvert “headwalls”, and install benches. 

Those involved in some way included Buckinghamshire County Council, Greenways and Cycle Routes, the Cycle Rail Working Group, the Rail Delivery Group and several local landowners, including the Waddesdon Estate and Rothschild Foundation.

Trailblazer

The Greenway was designed by John Grimshaw, of Greenways and Cycle Routes. He said: “It has all the potential to be a trailblazer for rural routes between villages and local rail stations.”

The organisations behind the new project want to introduce more walking and cycling routes to connect towns, villages, airports and tourist attractions along the HS2 corridor - which passes through Buckinghamshire, although there is no station there.

John Grimshaw began to develop traffic free paths in 1979, with the 24km Bristol and Bath Railway Path. In 1984 he founded Sustrans and coordinated the creation of the National Cycle Network. Since standing down as Sustrans Chief Executive, in John Grimshaw and Associates, he has specialised in drawing up proposals for cycling and walking projects intended to make a “real difference” to local people. 

The company prepares proposals and advances them by completing negotiations for each route, and handling the paperwork, including planning consents and other agreements and licences, working with local authorities, campaigners and interest groups.

HS2 cycling routes

 It has already drawn up proposals for a cycling route from London to Leeds and Manchester linking all the towns and villages close to the line of the high-speed HS2 line, with a high-quality cycling route. 

The detailed route studies for a National Cycleway associated with the entire length of HS2, which Grimshaw and Associates has been working on with partner companies, are now complete. The brief was to propose works to the highest European standard, and to pass through the centre of towns and communities within a 3 miles wide corridor either side of the HS2 route. 

The outcome would be a large series of local routes, built to the highest current standard, each of them benefiting communities which otherwise receive no gain from the new railway, because its stations will be so far away.

Local communities would have access to their countryside and nearby settlements, while visitors and tourists would be able to use them as part of longer national routes. 

The Aylesbury Vale Parkway Station to Waddesdon Greenway, for example, provides the only practical safe and attractive route north of Aylesbury town.

Elsewhere in Bucks the company is working with county and parish councils to make the most of opportunities which the new rail line presents to foster popular cycling. 

The UK government launched its £1.2 billion cycling and walking investment strategy in 2017. It wants to make  cycling and walking “a natural choice” for shorter journeys, or as part of longer journeys by 2040. 

[abroadinbuckinghamshire]

Top - New footpath and cycleway in Buckinghamshire, 2018. Photo: the writer.

Below - Waddesdon Greenway. Photo: @Waddesdon_Grnwy

Over the past 30 or 40 years transport infrastructure in the UK has expanded greatly, and disproportionately. Many new roads have been built, and existing roads widened. There have been new airports and runways and terminals to handle an explosion in traffic. And even some new railway lines and cycleways and footpaths, although not so many.

For every pothole in the road, rightly reported as dangerous, I could show you just as many broken down stiles on foot paths, muddy and slippery or overgrown rights-of-way, and dodgy gates that no longer shut. Relatively small sums could put these defects right, but roads have always been the national priority, and obsession.

Grandiose road-building projects still dominate the nation’s wish list. A £1.6 billion M4 bypass in South Wales? The money will be found. £2.6 billion for an Oxford to Cambridge “Expressway”?  It’s in the spending plans.

Schemes such as this will make life easier for millions of people down the years. That’s undeniable. But there is also solid evidence that walking and cycling is good for people’s health. Yet you have to search hard for a new footpath or cycleway of significance. They are being built, but not in big numbers. 

Celebrate

We should, though, celebrate those new schemes that are being completed, with local or national value. Earlier this year (2018) a new footpath was created, with a proper hard surface (although over only half its length, because there wasn’t enough money to make it to that standard throughout), about a kilometre long, to join our village and the next one. Previously people walking between the two places had to brave fast traffic, or walk uncomfortably on an overgrown verge.

The money came from the local “new homes bonus”, a grant paid by central government to councils to reflect and incentivise housing growth in their areas. 

Another scheme close to my home is bigger and rather more exciting. The 4 km, traffic free, Waddesdon Greenway, intended only for walkers and cyclists, from Aylesbury Vale Parkway Station to Waddesdon Manor, was opened on 13th September (2018). Within a few years the new London to Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds HS2 railway will pass either over or under the trail.

 The £1million project was funded by the Department for Transport as part of a strategy to connect rural communities (in this case the village of Waddesdon) to their nearest rail head.The ribbon was cut by transport Minister Jesse Norman, which was a measure of its importance. It almost seems mean-spirited to add that generous public funding was still not sufficient; the trail was completed with the help of volunteers who helped to build two bridges, fill and lay 3,000 sandbags for 25 culvert “headwalls”, and install benches. 

Those involved in some way included Buckinghamshire County Council, Greenways and Cycle Routes, the Cycle Rail Working Group, the Rail Delivery Group and several local landowners, including the Waddesdon Estate and Rothschild Foundation.

Trailblazer

The Greenway was designed by John Grimshaw, of Greenways and Cycle Routes. He said: "It has all the potential to be a trailblazer for rural routes between villages and local rail stations.”

The organisations behind the new project want to introduce more walking and cycling routes to connect towns, villages, airports and tourist attractions along the HS2 corridor - which passes through Buckinghamshire, although there is no station there.

John Grimshaw began to develop traffic free paths in 1979, with the 24km Bristol and Bath Railway Path. In 1984 he founded Sustrans and coordinated the creation of the National Cycle Network. Since standing down as Sustrans Chief Executive, in John Grimshaw and Associates, he has specialised in drawing up proposals for cycling and walking projects intended to make a “real difference” to local people. 

The company prepares proposals and advances them by completing negotiations for each route, and handling the paperwork, including planning consents and other agreements and licences, working with local authorities, campaigners and interest groups.

HS2 cycling routes

 It has already drawn up proposals for a cycling route from London to Leeds and Manchester linking all the towns and villages close to the line of the high-speed HS2 line, with a high-quality cycling route. 

The detailed route studies for a National Cycleway associated with the entire length of HS2, which Grimshaw and Associates has been working on with partner companies, are now complete. The brief was to propose works to the highest European standard, and to pass through the centre of towns and communities within a 3 miles wide corridor either side of the HS2 route. 

The outcome would be a large series of local routes, built to the highest current standard, each of them benefiting communities which otherwise receive no gain from the new railway, because its stations will be so far away.

Local communities would have access to their countryside and nearby settlements, while visitors and tourists would be able to use them as part of longer national routes. 

The Aylesbury Vale Parkway Station to Waddesdon Greenway, for example, provides the only practical safe and attractive route north of Aylesbury town.

Elsewhere in Bucks the company is working with county and parish councils to make the most of opportunities which the new rail line presents to foster popular cycling. 

The UK government launched its £1.2 billion cycling and walking investment strategy in 2017. It wants to make  cycling and walking “a natural choice” for shorter journeys, or as part of longer journeys by 2040. 

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When The Story of Holly and Ivy was first published, it was set in the Buckinghamshire market town of Aylesbury. In later editions the location was switche

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Paul Coleman, the detectorist who found the hoard, cuts a commemorative cake at Buckinghamshire County Museum in Aylesbury before invited Friends of the Museum and guests, many of whom contributed to the £1.35m fund to save the coins for the county, and the nation, The lower photo is of some of the Lenborough coins, stacked in the places where they were minted.

Coins from the Lenborough Hoard are now on permanent display in Buckinghamshire County Museum in Aylesbury. A room dedicated to the finds was opened at the Museum on Saturday, July 15. 2017.

The coins passed into public ownership after a successful public appeal raised  £1.35 million, the value put on the find by the Treasure Valuation Committee, to buy the 5,251 Viking and Anglo Saxon silver coins.

They will now stay in Buckinghamshire, the county where they was found in 2014, under the protection of the Buckinghamshire County Museum. (My earlier piece.)

Paul Coleman, the metal detectorist who discovered the coins in a field at Lenborough, Buckinghamshire, in 2014, cut a commemorative cake and answered guests’ questions.

The coins, a mix of Vikings and Anglo-Saxon denominations, depict the heads of King Ethelred the Unready and King Cnut. They were found buried in a protective cover of lead in a field at Lenborough, close to the town of Buckingham, in December 2014. In the museum’s previous 150 years, only 30 coins from that period had been found in the county. The hoard represents one of the two biggest finds of Anglo-Saxon coins ever made.

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 credit - Cartoonhttp://cartoonistdesfans.fr/agatha-christies-poirot/ @cartoonistfans

Hugh Fraser, keynote author and speaker at the fifth BeaconLit books and writing festival at Brookmead School, Ivinghoe, Bucks, on Saturday, July 8th, is pictured left in this jolly cartoon.

Fraser portrayed Captain Hastings, alongside David Suchet's Poirot in Agatha Christie's Poirot (ITV, 8 January 1989 to 13 November 2013) in 41 of the 49 episodes.

According to Wikipedia, his first big acting break was playing Anthony Eden in the 1978 television series Edward & Mrs. Simpson, with Edward Fox.

After that he often played upper class or aristocratic characters, such as Mr Talmann in Peter Greenaway's The Draughtsman's Contract.

As well as  Captain Hastings, and the Duke of Wellington in Sharpe, he appeared in the BBC’s Edge of Darkness.

Fraser’s film credits include Curse of the Pink Panther, 101 Dalmatians and Patriot Games. His theatre roles include Claudio in Much Ado About Nothing with the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1979. He played alongside Martin Shaw in Death in Holy Orders.

In recent years, he has been an associate tutor, director and member of the audition panel at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, (RADA).

He has also directed several plays, notably a production of David Mamet's adaptation of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, at Wilton's Music Hall in London in 2007.

Fraser’s first novel, Harm, was published in 2015, followed by Threat in 2016.The third in the Rina Walker series, Malice, came out in June 2017.

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Magic mountain

Hokusai - Beyond the Great Wave, British Museum, 25 May – 13 August 2017. 

The one unmissable out-of-town attraction in Japan is Mt Fuji. The best place to take in the majesty of this perfect cone is out at sea, where artist Hokusai pictures the famous breaking crest (with Mt Fuji under it). To arrange such an offshore trip, and in such tumultuous seas, is, of course, impossible for the ordinary visitor.

The easiest view is from the Bullet Train, heading south from Tokyo. The railway company usually books tourists a window seat. 

I took a coach tour to Fuji, to the Gotemba Fifth Station, 7500 feet up. On the way the sacred mountain rises above a patchwork of valleys and small fields in a rare green corner of built-up Japan. 

Spring is the best time to visit. The slopes were bare and bleak when I went there in the autumn. But the view out to sea was fabulous. You could take the train to the mountain from Tokyo to the nearby station of Gotemba (then a short bus trip, or taxi) for nothing, using the Japan rail pass.

But keep thinking about Hokusai’s view through the Great Wave.

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The exhibition opens on Thursday, May 24 th. It promises to be the British Museum's hottest ticket this year.

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(Above, Chris the tagged BTO cuckoo. Photo: BTO).

We haven’t heard “our” cuckoo for five years. It used to be an annual event we could rely upon, listening for the most recognisable of calls from our house and garden, from out across the fields to the north, close to the Grand Union Canal in Buckinghamshire.

A cuckoo would usually first be heard calling around the 20th of April, rarely earlier but never more than a few days later. From then on, we would hear it, or another, or others, almost without fail, daily, for the next four or five weeks.

I grew quite complacent about it. I used sympathise with friends living in London, who would rarely, if ever, hear the cuckoo in spring. Weren’t we the fortunate ones?

I think it was in 2011 or 2012 when that long and predictable pattern seemed to change. That was when the cuckoo arrived, very late, and called a few desultory times.

In 2013 I heard it only once. In 2014 I didn’t hear it at all from our garden. It was the same in 2015, and again in 2016. And this year again, not a sound.

Cuckoos are known to return to the area where they were born, after their prodigious travels from south of the Sahara, so it is likely that several generations in the same cuckoo lineage returned to this same area of fields and hedges and woodland around the Grand Union Canal.

There are no physical changes to explain its absence, no housing estate built, no switch to intensive agriculture – the land I mention is not cultivated, although other fields within an easy bird flight are, and treated, I suppose, with the usual cocktail of chemicals.

The British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) says the UK has lost over half its cuckoos over the past 20 years. Why has this happened?

One theory is that the irregular arrival of spring affects the nest building and egg laying of host species such as the meadow pipit, dunnock and reed warbler. Perhaps their breeding season no longer coincides with that of the cuckoo. Some years they may be nesting earlier, too soon for the arriving cuckoos. In other years they nest too late.

Or is something weather-related, or quite different, happening on the bird’s migration route? It is, perhaps, too early to make a definite link to climate change, but it must be a factor to be explored.

Idle bar-room speculation won’t give us an answer. But the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) might. Since 2011 it has fitted trackers to more than 50 cuckoos in different places in the UK to find out why their numbers have fallen so sharply. Already it has gathered abundant data about migratory routes.

Until a few years ago, the only record of a cuckoo ringed in the UK was a bird found in Cameroon 84 years ago. Technology now allows the BTO to follow cuckoos the whole winter through.

Light (5g) solar-powered tags were first fitted in Britain to five cuckoos in 2011. The BTO now knows that the birds follow two distinct flight paths. One is through the western Mediterranean, through Spain, Morocco and West Africa; the other is down into Italy and across the central Sahara. Cuckoos tagged in the UK spend the winter in central Africa, mainly in and around the Congo rainforest.

The BTO has also been able to show that cuckoos’ departure takes place as early as late June. They head out of the UK in different directions, some east across the North Sea to the Netherlands and Belgium, while others track south across the Channel into France.

In 2015 signals from one cuckoo tagged in the North Yorkshire Moors showed it crossing the Channel on 22 June; by 24 June it had travelled 965km (600 miles) to Italy and was west of Venice. It then headed north-east, to stop in Slovenia. Another Yorkshire cuckoo was in the Champagne-Ardennes region of France by 24 June, 620km (390 miles) from its previous location in Yorkshire.

That is bird watching at its most sophisticated  and scientifically valuable. It will throw more light on the travels, and travails, of our cuckoos. Let us hope that the BTO can discover the true causes of this totemic bird’s afflictions in time for remedial action to be taken.

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Have we reached “peak car” in the countryside?

I've endured my fair share of traffic jams. I've fumed at the steering wheel, and circled car parks in search of that elusive space. Stood by busy streets, despaired at the endless flood of vehicles and wondered if there would ever be a safe moment to cross.

But it wasn't until a sunny Sunday in April, at the beginning of the bluebell season in Buckinghamshire, that I finally concluded that there are too many cars and we need radical answers to them.

The setting for my final conversion was Monument Drive (pictured above) on the National Trust's Ashridge Estate, close to Berkhamsted and Tring. There were many hundreds of cars, crawling in, crawling out, and parked three deep on the grass verge.

The magnificent sweep of bluebells in the mainly beech woods at Ashridge is a potent allure, although you can meet huge crowds here on any sunny weekend throughout the year.

Two factors boost the large visitor numbers. One is that parking is free, although the National Trust does intend to bring in paid for parking sometime in 2018. Whether that will significantly reduce numbers remains to be seen.

The other reason is that it been very dry over the last winter, and cars are able to park several vehicles deep on the grass alongside the drive, when normally they would risk being grounded on the soggy turf. It's worth noting that dry summers are one promised outcome of climate change, to which all visitors driving non-electric cars unwittingly contribute.

Ashridge provides a graphic example of the sort of acute overcrowding in the densely populated south-eastern England, though you find it increasingly at "honeypot" sites throughout the country.

It is possible that we can can regulate these numbers simply by limiting parking spaces, though in the countryside visitors are likely to come anyway, in the hope of finding a spot somewhere. Parking charges in themselves are unlikely to deter them – after all visitors are accustomed to pay to park at National Trust properties, and Ashridge’s free regime is an aberration.

What solutions are possible? Road pricing is not a present option, and brings its perils to the political party (locally that is the Conservatives) bold enough to attempt it.

The “park and ride" model works very well in cities, notably Oxford, when few visitors even attempt to drive into the city centre, at least during the working day.

Why shouldn't this idea work in the countryside? People have no option but to use it at the nearby National Trust property at Waddesdon Manor. It doesn't appear to depress visitor numbers. It might be introduced in a limited way from the two local stations, Tring and Berkhamsted, with regular buses feeding into the Ashridge estate. But only a small number are likely to be persuaded to use the train instead, and there are no large areas of land available to park what is likely to be thousands of cars on a summer weekend.

So, have we finally crossed the “too much traffic” threshold? Or is it a case of large numbers of people exercising their right to drive on public roads in search of outdoor recreation, and we must put up with it until it becomes intolerable?

Let's ask the question again, after the Ashridge pay-to-park scheme comes in next year. But my hunch is that visitors will continue to surge in, and the only winner will be the estate itself, benefiting from a big boost in income which it will be able to spend on the very necessary work of safeguarding the estate from the environmental impact of such huge visitor numbers.

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World famous Flying Scotsman passes through

A national treasure passed through our county this week. I saw Flying Scotsman quite by chance, and had no time to set up a photograph, so this what we used to call it a “snapshot". I only knew it was coming, running down from York to the Bluebell Railway in Sussex, to pull special trains over the Easter holiday, through social media. I happened to be in Cheddington (on the West Coast Mail Line) on other business when we noticed a crowd of people on the playing fields, and guessed what was going on.

Before I looked it up, I’d forgotten quite how famous this steam locomotive was. It hauled the inaugural non-stop Flying Scotsman express train from London King’s Cross to Edinburgh on May 1st, 1928 - and on many occasions thereafter. It had a corridor in its tender, which allowed a fresh crew to take over halfway through the eight hour journey.

Built in 1923, and designed by Sir Nigel Gresley, it was the first locomotive in the famous London and North Eastern Railway (LNER). It was part of the A1 class – the most powerful locos used by the railway.

In 1924 it was chosen to appear at the British Empire Exhibition in London, numbered 4472 and given the name ‘Flying Scotsman’ after the (then stopping) London to Edinburgh rail service which was inaugurated in 1862. This appearance made Flying Scotsman famous, and it went on to feature in many publicity events for the LNER.

Its various accolades include being the first loco to run at 100 mph in the UK, in 1934; and a starring role in the first talking film, Flying Scotsman, alongside emerging Welsh actor Ray Milland. The actor went on to stardom in Hollywood during the 1940s.

Flying Scotsman had a distinguished career hauling express trains trains right through to 1963, when British Railways (BR) retired it towards the end of the steam era. It passed into private hands, and went on a tour of the USA where it was temporary stranded, when its owner went bankrupt.

Brought back to the UK, it was owned by various people, and then bought for the nation by the National Railway Museum York in 2004, possibly the second most famous loco in the world after speed record-holder Mallard. It was recently repainted in its BR green livery with its then number of 60103.

Flying Scotsman’s future is now assured, and its fame universal.

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Bluebells in Dockey Wood, Buckinghamshire, on the National Trust Ashridge Estate.

What's in a name?

Or in an approximate map reference, for that matter?

The bluebells in Sallow Copse and Dockey Wood (pictured above by me in May 2015) look just as magnificent whatever county they happen to be in.

So is it in the spirit of principle, or pedantry, that I want to claim them back for Buckinghamshire and away from Hertfordshire where Time Out (and possibly the National Trust, who would presumably have sent out the information) erroneously placed them this week?

The bluebells in the National Trust’s Ashridge Estate are some of the most visited in Britain. Lots of bluebell guides list them in the top 10 sites. Two years ago the throng had grown so great that the Trust decided to control numbers, and access, by charging visitors to see them. This year it is proposing several guided walks on which visitors can see the bluebells at their prodigious best.

They are well worth the money, and Time Out flagged them up as a attractive visit, quite close to its circulation area in London, where the magazine is given away free.

Ashridge has a Hertfordshire postal address, because that is where its estate office is. But the lesser, but still significant part, of this big rambling estate, saved from development in the 1920s when it was eagerly eyed by builders, happens to be over the county boundary in Buckinghamshire.

And this is where some of the best bluebell woods, including Sallow Copse and Dockey Wood, are.

Unlike the unimaginative but functional straight-line boundaries of Sykes and Picot, and other mapmakers of the early 20th century peace agreements, county lines usually follow parish boundaries or features such as streams and rivers.

The particular woods where the bluebells are so abundant in Ashridge are part of the Pitstone and Ivinghoe parishes of SE Bucks which push high up, out of their respective villages on to the hills where the elegant beech woods of the Ashridge estate now stand. In feudal times peasants would have used the higher land for grazing and wood gathering. So very much a Buckinghamshire landscape feature.

Is this important? I can quite imagine proprietorial rights being strongly asserted if a piece of borderland that happened to be in, say, Yorkshire, was wrongly attributed to, say, Lancashire. Or people in Cornwall being a bit miffed if part of its fringe was wrongly reallocated to Devon. So shouldn't it matter equally when it involves a quieter, less assertive county such as Bucks?

Geographical imprecision is not limited to landscape features. Take the F1 motor race course at Silverstone. Every year, at the British Grand Prix, the media reminds us that this is a racetrack in Northamptonshire. And yet while that is technically correct, for the entrance and main spectator area, about half of the track runs through…Buckinghamshire.

Back in Ashridge there are more than enough bluebells for two counties. Although Sallow Copse and Dockey Wood are indeed in Buckinghamshire, another stop on the walking tours the National Trust is offering in May is Aldbury Common. And that very much is in Hertfordshire.

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Buckinghamshire will keep 5,251 Anglo Saxon silver coins found in a field at Lenborough in 2014, valued at £1.35m.

A big boost for the tourism industry in the county. One of the biggest hoards of coins yet found from that time, safe for public display, just a few miles from where out was discovered.

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In winter artificial light can be a very positive force. This is the recently improved Aylesbury Canal Basin on what must count as the new heart of the town, with the university building in view, next to the Waterside Theatre. And the Waitrose supermarket, which draws many people to an area they might not otherwise see. (at Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire)