Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Title Page
Dedication
Preface
Map of England
The 39 Counties of England
BEDFORDSHIRE
BERKSHIRE
BUCKINGHAMSHIRE
CAMBRIDGESHIRE
CHESHIRE
CORNWALL
CUMBERLAND
DERBYSHIRE
DEVON
DORSET
DURHAM
ESSEX
GLOUCESTERSHIRE
HAMPSHIRE
HEREFORDSHIRE
HERTFORDSHIRE
HUNTINGDONSHIRE
KENT
LANCASHIRE
LEICESTERSHIRE
LINCOLNSHIRE
MIDDLESEX
NORFOLK
NORTHAMPTONSHIRE
NORTHUMBERLAND
NOTTINGHAMSHIRE
OXFORDSHIRE
RUTLAND
SHROPSHIRE
SOMERSET
STAFFORDSHIRE
SUFFOLK
SURREY
SUSSEX
WARWICKSHIRE
WESTMORLAND
WILTSHIRE
WORCESTERSHIRE
YORKSHIRE
Gazetteer
Index of Names
Index of Places
Copyright
Discover hundreds of facts you never knew about England in this fascinating miscellany.
Every county in England is a treasure trove of riveting tales, waiting to be discovered. The waiting is over: I Never Knew That About England is crammed with legends, firsts, supremes, unusuals, gossip, inventions, birthplaces and resting places – all the best facts and adventures from throughout the country, from the Middle Ages to today.
Visit each county in turn and discover where history and legends happened; where people, ideas and inventions were born, and now rest from their labours. A pentheon of writers and artists, thinkers and inventors, and heroes and villains have lived and toiled in this small country.
Remarkable events, noble (and dastardly) deeds and exciting adventures have all taken place with England as their backdrop. This book seeks out their heritage, their monuments, their memories and their secrets.
Christopher Winn is a writer, quiz master and producer for theatre and television. He has written for the Field, Country Life, the Sunday Express and the Daily Mail. He worked for eight years on Terry Wogan’s TV chat show, contributes questions for a number of TV quizzes, and has toured the length and breadth of the country researching this book. He lives in London with his wife, Mai, the illustrator of I Never Knew That About England.
www.i-never-knew-that.com
This book is dedicated to HUGH MONTGOMERY MASSINGBERD, without whose advice, encouragement and inspiration it would never have been written.
Also to my wife, MAI, who never lost her patience, grace and good humour during the process. Her exquisite illustrations lift this book beyond mere words.
Radcliffe Camera, Oxford
AS DR JOHNSON MIGHT HAVE said, ‘If I had no duties, and no reference to futurity, I would spend my life in driving briskly through England in a post-chaise with a copy of I Never Knew That About England.’
He, like me, considered ‘exploring England’ and a ‘good story’ to be two of the greatest pleasures in life, and this book is designed neatly to combine the two. I am never happier than when browsing through England. I have read the books, seen the films and done the tours, and yet still I find, down every lane, round every corner, in every town and village, new stories to surprise and inspire me.
The only criteria I have used for including stories in I Never Knew That About England are that they have England as their backdrop and that they have left me intrigued. I have endeavoured to ensure that there is something here for everyone, with a true miscellany of love stories, ghost stories, anecdotes, achievements, triumphs and disasters, inventions, mistakes and adventures, plus a smattering of fascinating facts and figures.
England packs an astonishing diversity of scenery and heritage into a tiny but ravishingly beautiful space and so, I hope, does this book. My aim is to enliven conversation, to enrich any journey, however mundane, to make anywhere you happen to find yourself a little more interesting. This book can be read on the train, in the bath, with a glass of wine, alone or in company, in a stolen moment. It can be used to impress your friends, to help you shine in the pub quiz or just to put a smile on your face. With I Never Knew That About England in your possession, time and time again you will experience the pleasure of hearing your friends exclaim ‘Well, I never knew that!’
ALTHOUGH I HAVE made every effort to get the facts right, many of these stories are not eternal truths but have been handed down through time, sometimes by word of mouth only. Details can vary according to different sources, but the essential substance and essence remains.
I NEVER KNEW That About England is organised by counties, as these are the most natural, recognisable and manageable way of describing localities. Furthermore, I have chosen the 39 traditional English counties that have defined the map of England for many hundreds of years, since these are based on natural boundaries, such as rivers and hills, and still inspire loyalty and a sense of identity. Most of the stories in this book took place with these traditional counties as their background, and would lose something of their flavour if relocated to within more modern, yet meaningless, bureaucratic entities. Hence you will find no Avon, Humberside or Cleveland while Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmorland, Huntingdonshire, Middlesex and Rutland are all restored to their rightful place on the map. Major conurbations such as London, Birmingham, Bristol, Newcastle and Manchester are broken up into their original county identities. The Vale of the White Horse is covered at the end of the Berkshire chapter. The only omission is Central London, which would make a book in itself.
‘a brickworks in the middle of a cabbage patch’
ANONYMOUS
Elstow Moot Hall, standing on the green where John Bunyan set his Vanity Fair from ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’
TURN EAST OFF the A1 near Sandy and you find yourself in an empty landscape of big skies and open hills. Down a lonely lane, on the crest of a rise, embowered in trees, is the church of St John, Cockayne Hatley, slumbering at the gates of an ancient hall. Step inside the church and gaze at the startling interior, which is a feast of medieval wood-work, carvings and stained glass, all imported from the Continent by a 19th-century rector, a display unrivalled by any country church in England.
But what really turns this remote and lovely spot into a special place of pilgrimage is the simple, grey tomb of WILLIAM HENLEY (1849–1903) and his family, which stands beneath an ash tree in the churchyard. William Henley was a Victorian poet. As a boy, he suffered from tuberculosis, which led to the amputation of one leg. While recuperating in Edinburgh, he befriended another young writer who suffered from ill health, ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. When Stevenson wrote Treasure Island, he drew inspiration for his peg-leg villain, LONG JOHN SILVER, from the redoubtable Henley.
William Henley wrote these famous lines in his poem ‘Invictus’:
Under the bludgeonings of fate
My head is bloody but unbowed
and
I am the master of my fate
I am the captain of my soul
MARGARET HENLEY, William’s much-loved daughter, was known to everyone as the ‘golden child’. With her flaxen hair, merry laugh and bright eyes, she captivated all who met her. William, by now editor of the National Observer, was mentor and confidant to many of the prominent writers of the age, including J.M. BARRIE, who quickly fell under Margaret’s spell. She noticed how her father would call Barrie ‘my friend’ and, whenever he visited, she would fling herself into his arms crying ‘Fwendy, Fwendy!’ It was thus that Peter Pan’s Wendy came by her name.
FEW MOTORISTS SPEEDING past Biggleswade on the Al realise that this quiet market town can proudly claim a place amongst the pantheon of world heritage sites. For it was here, in 1902, 82 years before Band Aid, an invention was unveiled that truly did help to ‘feed the world’ – the WORLD’S FIRST PRACTICAL TRACTOR.
The IVEL AGRICULTURAL MOTOR was the brainchild of inventor ‘GENIAL DAN’ ALBONE, who was born in Biggleswade in 1860. In his workshop beside the River Ivel, the site of which is marked by a plaque, he produced championship-winning Ivel bicycles, motor bicycles and motor cars, as well as a host of other ingenious devices, but the tractor was his crowning achievement. Work on adapting traction engines to pull farm machinery had already been going on in America, but these proved too heavy and unwieldy for the light soil around Biggleswade. Dan’s vision was for a light but powerful machine that could replace the horse for ploughing and harvesting, and could also be used to operate a whole range of other agricultural implements. After five years of experiment and research, he astonished the world by successfully demonstrating his tractor’s abilities, on fields 3 miles (4.8 km) away near Old Warden. These fields are still there, just past the Jordans cereal mill, and are the FIRST FIELDS IN THE WORLD TO BE PLOUGHED BY TRACTOR.
Daniel Albone died, tragically young, in 1906. So brilliant was his design that modern tractors of today are still largely based on his blueprint. He was also responsible for inventing:
TWO VAST GREEN sheds, looming over the fields of Cardington village, stand as an eerie memorial to the WORLD’S FIRST AIR DISASTER. From this spot, the mighty R101 departed, on a blustery October morning in 1930, to meet a fiery end on a hillside in France.
In the 1920s, airships were considered to be the transport of the future. Comfortable, safe and twice as fast as steamships, they appeared to offer a new and efficient way of linking the Mother Country to her far-flung Empire – India in six days, Canada in three, Australia in ten. The technology was still experimental, but the project was rushed along. LORD THOMSON, the Air Minister, was keen to make a grand arrival on the R101 at the first Imperial Conference, to be held in India in October 1930.
At 6.30 am on 4 October 1930, the R101 slipped her moorings and set off for India. Three thousand people watched her leave from Cardington, with thousands more waving their encouragement as she passed over southern England. On board there were 54 passengers, including Lord Thomson. At 1.45 am the next day, from just north of Beauvais, and with the weather suddenly deteriorating, she sent out a call enquiring as to her whereabouts – the last thing ever heard from the doomed ship. The storm brought her down and she hit the hillside in a sheet of flame. There were only eight survivors, two of whom died shortly afterwards.
When it was built, the R101 was the biggest vessel in the world and the shed in which it was built the largest building in Britain. That same shed is now the largest enclosed laboratory in the world. The other shed is used to build small airships used by the police and in film work.
No one really knows why the R101 crashed. The weather became far worse than expected, the payload was heavier than recommended, and neither the crew nor the ship had been tested in adverse conditions. Somehow, the pride of the Empire had ended up as a pile of twisted and scorched girders in a French field. The country was stunned. The 48 dead lay in state at Westminster Hall and there was a memorial service held in St Paul’s Cathedral attended by the Prince of Wales. All the victims were buried together in one grave, beneath a fine monument in the churchyard across the road from St Mary’s church. In the church hangs the flag that flew proudly from the R101 and was recovered from the flames.
WAS THIS EERIE, barren airfield, on windswept flats above Bedford, the last place on earth that America’s greatest band leader ever saw?
On 15 December 1944, GLENN MILLER (1904–44) boarded a Norseman transport plane at Twinwood airfield to fly to Paris, where his band was booked to perform for American troops. He flew off into the mist and was never seen again. No wreckage was ever found, nor was his body. Official records show that no planes took off that day, due to the foggy conditions. But Miller, who was a nervous flyer, apparently did take off, unofficially, uncharted and in appalling weather. Why? Was he on a secret mission? No-one knows.
However he died, Glenn Miller left a legacy of great music and the long-abandoned control tower at Twinwood has been restored to its original wartime appearance and turned into a museum dedicated to his memory. It is a haunting place and, just occasionally, a melancholy saxophone can be heard and the muffled beat of an old plane rising painfully into the sky …
STANDING AT THE crossroads of the Icknield Way and Watling Street, the ancient town of Dunstable is the unlikely BIRTHPLACE OF ENGLISH THEATRE. Here, in the 12th century, GEOFFREY DE GORHAM wrote and directed the FIRST PLAY EVER SEEN IN ENGLAND.
While he was waiting to become Prior of St Albans, de Gorham established a school in Dunstable, where he was living. The town possessed a large colony of weavers and he decided to compose a play as a way of teaching his pupils about St Catherine, the patron saint of weavers. For costumes, he used the robes of the choristers of St Albans Abbey and, for a stage, he used the cloisters of Dunstable Priory.
Dunstable Priory was also the scene of the trial and divorce of Catherine of Aragon. It was here that Archbishop Thomas Cranmer pronounced the Queen’s marriage to Henry VIII illegal and the document he issued to record this was the last ever to describe the Primate of England as an official of the Church of Rome.
The play proved such a success that others copied his example and put on the first MYSTERY PLAYS, which tell stories from the Bible, and are still performed today in places such as Chester. Originally staged in churches, they became so popular that they spilled out on to the streets and, eventually, non-religious themes were introduced. Thus was sown the seeds of a tradition that grew into arguably the greatest theatre in the world – the theatre of Shakespeare and Dryden, Coward, Pinter, Stoppard and Ayckbourn.
Well, I never knew this
ABOUT
BEDFORDSHIRE
SIR JOSEPH PAXTON (1801–65), designer of the CRYSTAL PALACE, was born in MILTON BRYAN near Woburn. His first job was as gardener at the next door estate of BATTLESDEN PARK. The lake he created there can still be seen, as can the avenue of trees he planted to mark his walk to work.
MARGARET BEAUFORT (1443–1509), matriarch of all European royalty, was born in BLETSOE, north of Bedford. As mother to Henry VII, she was the forebear of every monarch in Europe, and direct ancestor of our own Prince William. Educated and self-confident, she was perhaps the first modern English woman.
JOHN BUNYAN (1628–88), author of the religious best-seller The Pilgrim’s Progress, published in 1678, was born in the quaint village of ELSTOW, a tiny gem set amongst the industrial litter south of Bedford. Bunyan used many Bedfordshire landmarks in his novel, including a wonderfully boggy patch of weeds by the church at STEVINGTON – the SLOUGH OF DESPOND.
‘Berkshire is like a tattered old shoe, kicking out eastwards’
Newbury Cloth Hall, a fine legacy from the days when Newbury was at the centre of England’s wool trade.
READING BECAME THE county town of Berkshire in 1867, displacing the former capital, Abingdon. On the surface this might have appeared a bad move for Berkshire as Abingdon is a town of ancient beauty while Reading is not. But there is more to Reading than meets the eye.
KING HENRY I founded Reading Abbey in 1121 and presented it with the Hand of St James, which ensured the abbey grew rich as a centre of pilgrimage. Henry is buried before the High Altar, reputedly in a silver coffin, the site marked with a plaque. Nearby lies his daughter, the EMPRESS MAUD. And JOHN OF GAUNT was married here in 1359, setting off 14 days of celebrations.
In 1240, a monk from Reading Abbey, JOHN OF FORNSETE, who originally came from Norfolk, wrote down the music for a song called ‘Sumer is icumen in’. This is the EARLIEST RECORDED ENGLISH SONG and there is a memorial plaque on the wall of the Chapter House which records the tune. The original manuscript is in the British Library.
It is possible to wander among the ruins of this once powerful abbey, although only the inner gateway remains intact. JANE AUSTEN attended the Abbey School here. In FORBURY GARDENS next door, stands the WORLD’S LARGEST LION, a memorial to the Afghan Wars of the 19th century.
In the 18th century, HUNTLEY & PALMERS set up what became the BIGGEST BISCUIT FACTORY IN THE WORLD, making biscuits that were sent across the globe. Tins of Huntley & Palmers Reading biscuits were found in Scott of the Antarctic’s hut on Ross Island, where they still await his return. In 1975, just before the factory was closed, the bar scenes in Bugsy Malone, starring Jodie Foster, were filmed there. There is nothing left now, except for the recreation block beside the canal.
In 1892, OSCAR WILDE, a friend of the Palmers, visited the factory and, three years later, returned to serve two years in the prison next door, which was known to the inmates as the ‘biscuit factory’ because of its proximity to the real thing. This experience inspired The Ballad of Reading Gaol.
BEAR WOOD HOUSE, near Wokingham, was built in 1865 by the WALTER family, founders and owners of The Times newspaper. The Times was started by JOHN WALTER, a coal merchant and Lloyds underwriter, who began with a daily advertising sheet called the Daily Universal Register, which was first published on 1 January 1785. Walter was happy to negotiate secret deals to publish stories favourable to the government and this helped increase profits so that, in 1788, he was able to expand the paper to appeal to a larger audience. He renamed it The Times, began to publish gossip about members of London society, and was sent to prison for two years for writing about the Prince of Wales.
He handed over a flourishing paper to his son, JOHN WALTER II, in 1803. This Walter introduced steam-powered printing and was soon selling 7,000 copies a day. He wanted to produce a paper free from government influence and, as a result, began to employ independent reporters who gathered their own stories. The Times was hugely influential in its support of the GREAT REFORM ACT of 1832, the first major shift of power away from the land-owning aristocracy.
In 1816, John Walter II bought 3,000 acres at BEAR WOOD, and laid out the grounds and a fishing lake. In 1822, he built a small classical villa in the park, with a village at the gates, adding a church across the road in 1846.
JOHN WALTER III further enhanced the reputation of The Times when he took it over in 1847 by employing the finest writers and reporters of the day, such as W.H. RUSSELL, whose dispatches from the CRIMEAN WAR were instrumental in getting FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE sent out to the front. He also invented the WALTER PRESS, the first machine to print newspapers at high speed from a continuous roll.
Bear Wood House was rebuilt by John Walter III in 1865 and his extravagance in constructing the monstrous Victorian pile almost drained the profits of The Times, even though it was now selling 65,000 copies a day, the LARGEST NEWSPAPER CIRCULATION IN THE WORLD. Walter III also rebuilt The Times offices in Printing House Square at Blackfriars, with bricks and wood from the Bear Wood estate.
In 1870, JOHN WALTER IV drowned in the lake at Bear Wood while trying in vain to rescue his brother and a cousin, who had fallen through the ice while skating. This tragedy, allied to falling profits, forced the sale of The Times to LORD NORTHCLIFFE.
The family still live in the grounds, although the house itself is now a boarding school, which can be visited during school holidays or by appointment. The lake is still there, and the Walters are buried beneath four great trees outside the church. One famous descendant is the actress, HARRIET WALTER.
BUILT IN 1838 by ISAMBARD KINGDOM BRUNEL, this bridge, constructed for the GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY over the River Thames at MAIDENHEAD, has the WIDEST AND FLATTEST BRICK ARCH IN THE WORLD, with a span of 128 ft (39 m) that rises by only 24 ft (7.3 m). Few believed it would take the weight of a locomotive, but it proved so strong that an exact copy was built when the bridge was extended westwards. The original is known as the Sounding Arch because of the perfect echo that can be experienced when standing on the pathway beneath. The bridge was the subject of a painting by J.M.W. TURNER.
The pop group Jethro Tull (the first act on the Chrysalis record label) got their name when their manager, Terry Ellis, spotted a copy of Horse Hoeing Husbandry in someone’s office.
JETHRO TULL WAS born in 1674 in the Thames-side village of Basildon, now called Lower Basildon (not to be confused with Basildon in Essex). The son of a Berkshire farmer, Tull studied law, but was forced to help out on his father’s farm, HOWBERRY FARM, at Crowmarsh, near Wallingford, because of financial difficulties. Crops were sown by hand in those days, which was slow and inefficient, and Jethro Tull hated doing manual work. He also disliked paying wages, so he set about devising a machine that would do the work instead.
In 1701, using pieces of an old pipe organ that he had dismantled, Tull invented the FIRST KNOWN SEED DRILL, a rotating cylinder with grooves cut into it to allow seed to fall from the hopper into a funnel. This directed the seed into a furrow cut by a plough in front of the machine, which was then covered over with soil by a harrow fixed to the back. The whole thing was pulled by a horse and could sow up to three rows at once. The fields where he experimented with this are unfortunately now built over.
In 1709, Jethro Tull moved to PROSPEROUS FARM near Hungerford, where he continued to perfect his design. He also came up with a horse-drawn hoe for clearing weeds and loosening the roots of the crops, which enabled them to absorb water more efficiently. In 1731, he published his theories on farming and plant nutrition in The New Horse Hoeing Husbandry or An Essay on the Principles of Tillage and Vegetation.
His ideas formed the basis of modern agriculture, and his inventions pioneered the mechanisation of farming. However, although they have been of immense benefit to the whole world, Jethro Tull’s labour-saving devices were such a success that they directly contributed to the mass unemployment problems that plagued England in the 18th century.
Prosperous Farm, where he developed his revolutionary ideas, is still there, just south of Hungerford. Ironically, the farm where mechanised agriculture was born today specialises in dairy products produced on a small scale, using traditional, old-fashioned methods. You can visit the Prosperous Farm shop.
OAKLEY COURT IS an eerie 19th-century Gothic pile built on the banks of the River Thames near Bray, which, during the Second World War, served as the HEADQUARTERS OF THE FRENCH RESISTANCE.
Oakley Court
In 1951, HAMMER FILMS moved into the Bray Studios next door, and Oakley Court became the original HAMMER HOUSE OF HORROR, DRACULA’S CASTLE and even ST TRINIAN’S SCHOOL. It is now a luxury hotel.
In the 18th century, DOWN PLACE, which became Bray Studios, was the home of the KIT-KAT CLUB, a group of Whig politicians and literary folk who got together to uphold the Glorious Revolution and the Protestant succession. They originally met at Christopher Kat’s tavern in the City, which was famous for its mutton pies known as Kit-Kats. Influential members included the Dukes of Somerset and Newcastle, Sir Robert Walpole, Joseph Addison and Godfrey Kneller. The club also gave its name to one of the UK’s best-selling chocolate bars.
BRAY is famous for the pragmatic VICAR OF BRAY, Simon Alleyn, who was twice a Catholic and twice a Protestant during the reigns of Henry VIII and his three children:
whatsoever King shall reign
I’ll remain the Vicar of Bray, Sir!
TO THE SOUTH of Newbury, stands SANDLEFORD PRIORY, home of the BLUESTOCKINGS. The remains of a 13th-century Augustine priory were incorporated into a Gothic country house by James Wyatt in 1780 for the rich hostess ELIZABETH MONTAGU (1720–1800). She held literary evenings here for her more serious-minded lady friends where well-known thinkers and writers were invited to talk and entertain the ladies with discussions on the subjects of the day.
One such gentleman was poet and publisher DR BENJAMIN STILLINGFLEET, who became a favourite, due to his wit and humour. Being too poor to afford formal black silk stockings, he was allowed to attend in his informal day wear – blue worsted stockings. ADMIRAL BOSCAWEN, whose wife was a keen supporter of these evenings, referred to them derisively as ‘those blue stocking sessions’, and the term was soon applied to the ladies who attended. Today, the term is used to describe a bookish, intellectual woman. Appropriately enough, Sandleford Priory is now a girls’ school.
Sandleford Priory
Well, I never knew this
ABOUT
BERKSHIRE
In the churchyard of the handsome village of SUTTON COURTENAY, beside the River Thames, is the grave of Liberal Prime Minister HERBERT HENRY ASQUITH (1852–1928), who lived nearby in a house called THE WHARF. His administration was confronted with the suffragettes, Irish Home Rule and the First World War, during which he was ousted by Lloyd George. In 1925, he became Earl of Oxford and Asquith, a grand title which led Lord Salisbury to declare, ‘It is like a suburban villa calling itself Versailles.’ His wife Margot, who is buried with him, was herself a celebrated wit. When asked what she thought about Lloyd George she remarked, ‘He could not see a belt without hitting below it.’
Not far away lies GEORGE ORWELL (1903–50), author of Animal Farm and 1984, who is buried under his real name Eric Arthur Blair.
ABINGDON was the home of MG CARS, the initals standing for MORRIS GARAGES, who were the Oxford distributors for Morris cars. The first MGs were modified sporting versions of the standard Morris Cowley but they proved so popular that the newly formed MG Car Company moved to its own factory at Abingdon in 1929, building up a loyal following until the factory closed in 1980.
In 1927, MG had built a one-off prototype saloon with a fabric body of gold and stippled black which was kept as a run-around when the company moved to Abingdon. The local people nicknamed it ‘Old Speckled Un’, which over time became ‘Old Speckled Hen’. In 1979, when the Abingdon brewery of MORLAND’S were asked to brew a special beer to celebrate the the Golden Jubilee of the MG factory, they named the new ale ‘Old Speckled Hen’.
At APPLEFORD, by Didcot, near a big elm in the churchyard, lies JOHN FAULKNER, the WORLD’S OLDEST JOCKEY. He rode his first winner at the age of eight in the year that Queen Victoria came to the throne (1837) and rode in his last race when he was 74. He lived here at Appleford, fathered 32 children and died in 1933, aged 104.
Standing alone, back from the road, on an isolated plateau of the Vale of the White Horse, is the atmospheric old moated LYFORD GRANGE, half hidden behind trees in a hollow. Here, on a fateful night in 1581, the Jesuit martyr EDMUND CAMPION was betrayed and captured.
‘Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds’
THOMAS GRAY, Elegy written in a Country Church-Yard
Mayflower Barn, built with the timbers from the Pilgrim Father’s ship the Mayflower
COLNBROOK IS A rather overlooked, old-world village squeezed between the M25 and M4, right next to Heathrow Airport. In this unlikely setting, in 1825, RICHARD COX, a brewer, grew the FIRST COX’S ORANGE PIPPIN. In The Apples of England, it is described thus: ‘all characters so admirably blended and balanced as to please the palate and nose as no other apple can do … the greatest apple of this age.’ Today, many experts still regard the Cox’s Orange Pippin as the BEST FRESH EATING APPLE.
Colnbrook is also the proud possessor of the OSTRICH, the THIRD OLDEST PUB IN ENGLAND, which just happens to be the MOST HAUNTED PUB IN ENGLAND, too. King John stayed here on his way to sign Magna Carta in 1215, as, later, did Queen Elizabeth I and also, reputedly, Dick Turpin. None of them, however, suffered the awful fate of some 60 guests of the 17th-century landlord THOMAS JARMAN. Jarman designed an ingenious bed – a replica of which can be seen at the Ostrich Inn today – which was nailed to a trap door above the kitchen. He would show prosperous single guests into the comfortable-looking Blue Room where the bed was and, when they were asleep, he and his wife would unbolt the trap door, so that the bed tipped up and the unfortunate fellow was plunged into a vat of boiling water set up on the stove below. The guest’s body was then thrown into a nearby river and his horse and belongings sold to unsuspecting passers-by. The Jarmans were finally caught when somebody recognised a horse belonging to one of their victims, Thomas Cole, which had escaped and was found drinking in the brook running through the village. Thereafter the brook was known as Colnbrook – the brook where Thomas Cole’s horse was found. The ghosts of the Jarmans’ victims still haunt the pub’s premises today.
The Curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me
IT WAS IN the country churchyard of Stoke Poges, while sitting in the shade of a yew tree, that THOMAS GRAY (1716–1771) wrote these immortal words. Gray was the only survivor of 12 children. An inheritance from his father enabled him to live at Cambridge, studying law, and to buy his mother a house in Stoke Poges, where he spent his holidays writing poetry. As a result of his Elegy, Gray’s fame spread across the world. GENERAL WOLFE took a copy of it with him to Canada and was heard to say before scaling the Heights of Abraham, ‘I would rather be the author of that poem than take Quebec!’
Stoke Poges Golf Club
Despite being sandwiched between two motorways and close to Slough, the atmosphere evoked by Gray’s Elegy – ‘where melancholy marked him for her own’ – can still be experienced in this tranquil spot. Gray is buried beside his mother in a brick tomb outside the east end of the church. A short walk away is a huge sarcophagus erected in Gray’s memory by JOHN PENN, the grandson of the founder of Pennsylvania, William Penn, in 1799.
John Penn also built the vast white Palladian country house that can be seen across the wall of the churchyard. It is now the clubhouse of Stoke Poges Golf Club and is familiar to all JAMES BOND fans as the clubhouse where James Bond met Auric GOLDFINGER. It is easy to imagine Goldfinger’s yellow Rolls-Royce sitting at the entrance, and you can still see the statues, one of which was beheaded by ODDJOB’S bowler hat. Close by is the 18th green where Bond won the match against Goldfinger.
Stoke Poges is a popular location for many Bond film scenes because of its proximity to Pinewood Studios, where the Bond films are still made today. JAMES BOND’S WIFE TRACY, for example, is buried in the churchyard at Stoke Poges and we see Bond visiting her grave at the start of For Your Eyes Only.
PINEWOOD STUDIOS IS BRITAIN’S FOREMOST FILM AND TELEVISION STUDIOS. At its heart lies a Victorian mansion called HEATHERDEN HALL, once a secret retreat for politicians and businessmen. In 1934, the estate was bought by CHARLES BOOT, who joined with J. ARTHUR RANK to build ‘THE BEST STUDIOS IN THE WORLD’. They named it Pinewood (which neatly mirrors Hollywood) after the huge pine trees in the garden. By the end of the 1930s, Pinewood was PRODUCING MORE FILMS THAN ANY OTHER STUDIO IN THE WORLD.
The 007 sound stage, where the Bond films are made, is the BIGGEST SOUND STAGE IN THE WORLD, and Pinewood also boasts the BIGGEST EXTERIOR TANK IN EUROPE.
In 2004, Cliveden became Lady Penelope’s house in the Thunderbirds movie.
The scene from Four Weddings and a Funeral where Andie MacDowell has to hide from the wedding guest who thinks he’s ‘in with a chance’ with that ‘damn fine filly’ (described in the credits as ‘the bore in the inn’) was filmed at the Crown Hotel in Amersham.
The village of Turville, nestling in the Chilterns, is in fact Dibley, from the TV series The Vicar of Dibley.
The windmill high above on the hill was the home of Caractacus Potts, the dotty inventor in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
THERE ARE TWO Beaconsfields, Old and New. The handsome coaching town of Old Beaconsfield is much the more enticing, although New Beaconsfield is home to Bekonscot, the OLDEST MODEL VILLAGE IN THE WORLD. This was the inspiration for NODDY’S TOYTOWN – ENID BLYTON lived in Beaconsfield, in a house built of red brick with black and white half-timbered gables, called GREEN HEDGES. There is a model of it at Bekonscot.
EDMUND BURKE (1729–97), who is buried inside Beaconsfield church, is regarded as one of the greatest political thinkers of all time. His basic belief was that no one individual or institution should have too much power for, as he put it, ‘the greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse’. Many of his principles were adopted in the AMERICAN CONSTITUTION:
Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.
All that is neccessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing.
G.K. CHESTERTON (1874–1936) lived in Beaconsfield and is buried in the Roman Catholic cemetery there. He was a prolific writer, renowned for his sense of humour and distinctive look. Standing 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m) and weighing in at over 20 stone (127 kg), he wore a cape and hat, brandished a swordstick and chewed a cigar. He was notoriously absent-minded and would send telegrams to his wife posing such questions as, ‘Am at Market Harborough. Where should I be?’ His most famous creation was FATHER BROWN, a shabbily dressed priest with an umbrella who possessed a remarkable insight into the evils of the human mind.
TERRY PRATCHETT, Britain’s leading science fiction and fantasy writer, was born in Beaconsfield in 1948.
JAMES BOND AND BUCKINGHAMSHIRE come together again at Newport Pagnell, near Milton Keynes. Here they build the cars that will forever be associated with James Bond, ASTON MARTINS.
Before Goldfinger, Aston Martin was a small specialist company known only to a few wealthy enthusiasts. After Goldfinger, the Aston Martin DB5 was the BEST-KNOWN AND MOST SOUGHT-AFTER CAR IN THE WORLD. And yet Aston Martin had at first been reluctant film participants. The film’s producer, Cubby Broccoli, wanted a car that epitomised English class, discreetly powerful, unruffled, hand-made, rare and refined, like Bond himself. The DB4 was perfect, but Aston Martin, already struggling to build six cars a week, couldn’t spare one. Somewhat hesitantly, they lent Broccoli two DB5s, and the rest is history.
Now owned by Ford, Aston Martin still build cars by hand at Newport Pagnell. In order to visit their factory in Tickford Street, you must cross TICKFORD BRIDGE – built in 1810, it is the OLDEST IRON BRIDGE IN BRITAIN STILL CARRYING HEAVY TRAFFIC.
HAMBLEDEN IS AN almost perfect village, nestling in a tree-embowered Chiltern valley, with neat timbered cottages clustered round an old church and a grand manor house. The first lords of the manor were the CLARE family, whose name is the FIRST TO APPEAR ON MAGNA CARTA. The present owners of the estate are Mr and Mrs Urs Schwarzenbach who bought it from the Hon. Henry Smith, descendant of W. H. Smith the newsagent, in 2007. The Smiths still live in the manor house.
In 1828, WILLIAM HENRY SMITH (1792–1865) took over a small newsagents on the Strand, London, from his father. He then set about creating the best newspaper delivery service in Britain, using fast horses and carts to collect papers from Fleet Street and take them to stagecoach stops. His son, also WILLIAM HENRY SMITH (1825–91), opened the FIRST RAILWAY BOOKSTALL at Euston Station in 1848. Soon W. H. Smith began opening branches in town centres served by railways. They went on to become the BIGGEST AND MOST FAMOUS NEWSAGENT IN THE WORLD. In 1868, William Jnr the second W. H. Smith, who had become an MP and Leader of the Commons, bought the Greenlands estate, which included much of Hambleden, and he is buried in the churchyard. His widow was created Viscountess Hambleden in his honour. His son bought Hambleden Manor in 1923.
Hambleden is the birthplace of two notable characters, THOMAS DE CANTELUPE (1218–82), the LAST ENGLISHMAN TO BE CANONISED before the Reformation, and LORD CARDIGAN (1797–1868), who led the CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE in 1854 and was born in the present manor house. The knitted woollen sweater he wore against the cold in the Crimea is named after him.
Well, I never knew this
ABOUT
BUCKINGHAMSHIRE
Standing almost side by side on the A5 Watling Street in STONY-STRATFORD are the COCK and the BULL, inns of ancient repute. In the 18th century, coaches would stop off here on their way from London to the north west and many a traveller’s tale would be embellished as it flew between the two establishments, fuelled by good ale and a good audience. Hence, an unlikely story became a COCK AND BULL STORY.
Off Station Road in AMERSHAM ON THE HILL is HIGH AND OVER, a white house of concrete and steel built in 1929. This is the FIRST HOUSE IN BRITAIN TO BE DESIGNED USING THE ‘FUNCTIONALIST’ CONCEPT of Swiss architect LE CORBUSIER.
RUTH ELLIS (1926–55), the LAST WOMAN TO BE HANGED IN BRITAIN, lies at St Mary’s church, AMERSHAM.
CHESHAM was home to the MAD HATTER from Alice in Wonderland. ROGER CRABBE suffered dreadful head injuries during the English Civil War and retired to Chesham to open a hat shop, where he lived on turnips and dressed in sackcloth.
Cliveden
There has been a house at CLIVEDEN, with its unmatched views of the River Thames, since 1666, when the Duke of Buckingham built a hunting lodge here. It was at Cliveden, in 1740, while Frederick, Prince of Wales, was living here, that the Last Night of the Proms’ favourite, RULE BRITANNIA, was performed for the first time. It was written by a Scottish poet named James Thomson as part of a masque, and put to music by Thomas Arne.
In 1961 Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, met a show girl called Christine Keeler by the swimming pool at Cliveden and started a brief affair with her. It turned out she was also sleeping with an attaché at the Soviet Embassy and, in June 1963, Profumo resigned, having misled the House of Commons by claiming that there was ‘no impropriety whatever’ in his relationship with her.
DORNEY COURT, a beautiful Tudor manor house near Eton, passed by marriage to the PALMER family in 1537 and has remained in the family ever since. BARBARA VILLIERS, favourite mistress of Charles II, was the wife of Roger Palmer of Dorney. The FIRST PINEAPPLE GROWN IN ENGLAND was produced here in 1665 and given to Charles II.
MARY SHELLEY (1797–1851), wife of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, wrote Frankenstein while living in West Street, MARLOW. The Gothic-style cottage in which they lived is still there and marked by a plaque. The suspension bridge across the Thames at Marlow was built in 1831 by WILLIAM CLARK as a prototype for his famous bridge over the Danube linking Buda and Pest in Hungary.
‘And Cambridgeshire of all England The Shire for Men who Understand’
RUPERT BROOKE
North Brink, Wisbech. Wisbech was home to England’s first canning factory.
HOBSON STREET IN Cambridge recalls a 16th-century benefactor and Mayor of Cambridge, THOMAS HOBSON, who brought the first ‘fresh’ water to the city along HOBSON’S CONDUIT, which still runs alongside Trumpington Street. Hobson was also a ‘carrier’, and would hire out his horses in strict rotation – a customer could choose from any horse, provided it was the one standing next to the stable door. This became known as HOBSON’S CHOICE. (A notable advocate of this principle was Henry Ford, who told his customers that they could have their Model T in any colour, provided it was black.)
The GREAT COURT at TRINITY COLLEGE is the LARGEST ENCLOSED COURTYARD IN BRITAIN, measuring 340 ft (104 m) by 288 ft (88 m). A famous tradition is for the undergraduates to try and run around the Great Court in the time it takes the big clock on the north side to strike twelve. This feat was immortalised in the film Chariots of Fire, although the scene was actually filmed at Eton, as the Trinity authorities refused the producers permission to film on the premises.
England’s only non-royal head of state, OLIVER CROMWELL rests in an unmarked grave near the doors to the chapel of SIDNEY SUSSEX COLLEGE. At the Restoration, Cromwell’s body was disinterred from Westminster Abbey and his head was stuck on a pole outside Westminster Hall. It stayed there for 20 years until it was blown down in a storm and collected by a passer-by, as a rather freakish souvenir. It then passed through a number of hands until, in 1960, it was left to Sidney Sussex College by Canon Wilkinson, in whose possession it had ended up.
The oldest building in Cambridge is ST BENEDICT’S church. The bells hanging in its Saxon tower were the FIRST IN THE WORLD TO BE USED FOR CHANGE RINGING, invented here in about 1650 by the patron saint of bell ringers, FABIAN STEDMAN. He was both clerk of the parish and a printer, who printed his changes on paper and taught them to the bell ringers of St Benedict’s. Change ringing is the playing of a melody or tune by a team of bellringers, each in charge of their own bell, which is free to rotate on a bell wheel. This is as opposed to a carrillon or chime, such as Big Ben, where a number of fixed bells of different note are struck in order.
I only know that you may lie day long and watch the Cambridge sky, and, flower lulled in sleepy grass, hear the cool lapse of hours pass, until the centuries blend and blur in Grantchester
THANKS TO THESE evocative lines, written by RUPERT BROOKE (1887–1915), Grantchester, near Cambridge, has gained immortality as the perfect English village, where gentlefolk take tea on warm, drowsy, summer afternoons and the vicar plays croquet on the lawn. Indeed, it was at the OLD VICARAGE in Grantchester that Rupert Brooke came to live in 1909, while studying at Cambridge University, and his happy memories of life here inspired his famous poem which concludes
In Grantchester, in Grantchester …
… stands the Church clock at ten to three?
And is there honey still for tea?
Rupert Brooke also wrote:
If I should die, think only this of me,
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is forever England.
In fact, he did die abroad, in the Dardanelles in 1915, at the age of 28, defending, like so many other young men of his generation, the idyllic England he portrayed in his poetry, which only goes to make his wistful recollections more poignant.
Grantchester today is by no means idyllic, but is still a tranquil spot and the Old Vicarage has maintained at least some of its literary connections – the novelist JEFFREY ARCHER lives there.
THE ISLE OF Ely is named after the eels found in the waters that once surrounded this small hill rising 68 ft (21 m) high above the Fens. The town of Ely is dominated by the vast cathedral, which was begun in the 11th century, although its history dates back far before that time. In 673, Etheldreda, wife of King Egfrid, and known as St Awdrey, founded a monastery on the Isle of Ely, which had been left to her by a previous husband. The annual fair held at Ely, called St Awdrey’s Fair, was notorious for cheap trinkets and jewellery and items bought there became known as St Awdrey or, as we say today, TAWDRY. The monastery was finally sacked by the Danes in 870.
The crowning glory of Ely Cathedral is the OCTAGON, the ONLY GOTHIC DOME IN THE WORLD. An incomparable feat of medieval engineering, there is nothing else like it anywhere. It was built by ALAN DE WALSINGHAM in the early 14th century, to replace the Norman central tower which had collapsed in 1322. Walsingham wanted to utilise the whole space that had been opened up, but he realised that the span of 74 ft (23 m) was too wide for a stone vault. So he scoured England until he found, at Chicksands in Bedfordshire, eight oak trees large enough to make the massive pillars necessary to support 200 tons of timber, glass and lead. Light and colourful, the whole edifice seems to float in space.
ON 11 OCTOBER 1216, King John (1167–1216) set out from (King’s) LYNN in Norfolk, at the head of a baggage train containing the Crown Jewels, household treasures and the booty he had plundered from the rich merchants and farming folk of East Anglia. In a hurry to head north, his party attempted to cross the broad estuary known as the WELLSTREAM without a guide. In the days before the Fens were drained, this stretch of water and mudflats, where the river meets the sea, was a maelstrom of whirlpools and strong, shifting currents. The horsecarts, heavy with treasure, sank into the mud, becoming completely stuck. The tide swept in and the waters closed above them. The king himself had to swim, barely escaping with his life, and died a week later, at NEWARK, possibly from the shock of the ordeal and the loss of all his possessions.
John’s son, Henry III, was later crowned with a gold circlet, instead of the magnificent bejeweled crown his father had worn – which continues to lie somewhere under the mud at FOUL ANCHOR, along with the rest of the treasure. The area still attracts bounty hunters and has a melancholy air. Just occasionally, the plaintive sobs and whinnies of drowning men and horses can be heard on the chill sea winds, mingling with the cries of the scavenging gulls.
SAWSTON HALL FOUND itself at the centre of royal intrigue in 1553. MARY TUDOR, daughter of Henry VIII, was riding to London to see her brother, Edward VI, unaware that the king had died and that Lady Jane Grey had been proclaimed Queen by the Duke of Northumberland. A secret message reached Mary that she was riding into a trap set by the Duke, who planned to imprison her, so she changed course and rode hard for Sawston Hall, which was owned by a Catholic supporter named HUDDLESTON. Here she spent the night.
The Duke found out where she was and sent a force to capture her the next morning, but Mary escaped dressed as a kitchen maid. Looking back at Sawston from the GOG MAGOG hills, Mary saw the house in flames, set alight by the enraged soldiers. ‘Let it burn,’ she said, ‘I will build Huddleston a better house.’ And she did. When she became Queen, Sawston Hall was rebuilt at Mary’s expense, using blocks of clunch (a hard chalk found in East Anglia) from the ruins of Cambridge Castle.
Always a refuge for persecuted Catholics, Sawston Hall contains a priest hole built by NICOLAS OWEN (see Priest Holes, Worcestershire) hidden in the stairs of the circular tower. The Huddlestons remained owners until the 1970s. The hall is now being refurbished as a hotel.
Well, I never knew this
ABOUT
CAMBRIDGESHIRE
TRUMPINGTON CHURCH contains the SECOND OLDEST BRASS IN BRITAIN (see Stoke D’Abernon, Surrey). It dates from 1289 and is dedicated to Sir Roger de Trumpington, who went on a Crusade with Edward I.
Just east of Parson Drove, near Wisbech, is WOAD MILLS FARM, which stands on the site of the LAST WOAD MILL IN ENGLAND (the remains of which are in Wisbech Museum). It closed down in 1910. Woad was the only source of blue dye for colouring clothes that could be grown in northern climes and was famously used to paint the bodies of ancient Britons to make their appearance more fearsome. The bright yellow flowered plant was grown in abundance here as a field crop. Using a horse-powered mill, the leaves were chopped into a paste, which was then dried into a powder. As it became easier to import indigo, which gives a brighter and stronger blue dye, from southern Asia, the use of woad gradually died out.
The BRIDGE INN at WILBURTON is the LOWEST-LYING PUB IN BRITAIN – it stands just 8 ft (2.4 m) above sea level.
The windmill at BOURN, west of Cambridge, is the OLDEST SURVIVING WINDMILL IN BRITAIN. It was first recorded in 1636, but may be older. It is a post mill, and the whole structure revolves around a central post so that the sails can be faced into the wind (see Outwood, Surrey). The mill is currently being restored.
