Arriving in Aylesbury from Oxford doesn’t give the best first
impressions of Buckinghamshire. After Oxford’s grandeur the grim 60’s sterility
of Aylesbury comes as a stark contrast, so does the seemingly drab countryside.
Buckinghamshire fills a convoluted splat of land within London’s
commuter belt and is geared far more to the needs of the busy residents than to
tourists so it’s no surprise that Aylesbury feels rather bland. The town sits
central to the county so seemed a good place to start.
There really was very little incentive to linger however enticing the
concrete utilitarian architecture may have been and I was keen to delve deeper
into the county. I had only one day here so wanted to see as much as possible for
the short time.
To the south the landscape becomes far more appealing. The Chiltern Hills
rise and a scattering of parklands and country homes warrant a visit, including
the Prime Minister’s country retreat. I made the less obvious choice of heading
north. This was less to do with any specific attraction but more that I had an
AirBnB booked in Northampton.
My first port of call was the town of Buckingham. It’d be fair to assume
it would be the county town however when the railways bypassed the town and
Aylesbury swelled in size and stature Buckingham was left behind. Today the
town remains as a very small market town. Despite giving its name to the
Queen’s palace in London the town is very compact and quiet but still a
pleasant stop off point.
Leaving the town things suddenly took an unexpected change of character.
Without much warning the low key fringes of the town expanded into a grand tree
lined avenue with a large triumphal arch at its head. I was approaching the
grounds of Stowe House.
This vast country home is largely used as an expensive school today but
the grounds are open to the public. I parked up and followed a guided trail
around the immense lawns and carefully landscaped gardens. Although the full
spring foliage hand not yet come through the views were still inspiring and
ever changing. Follies, shrines and temples had been carefully built to provide
interest in the landscape.
Although I could have easily spent all day here I still had a place on
my list to visit before heading to Northampton. I was heading to the sprawling
town of Milton Keynes.
Milton Keynes was little more than farmland until the 50s when urban
planners picked this spot to build a new town to house some of the Londoner’s who’d
been made homeless during the blitz. This was to be a new and modern utopia,
far removed from the inner city crowded slums. They plotted out a grid of
streets, breaking far away from the winding lanes of old. There was to be
ordered clusters of homes with covered walkways to the large central core. The
vision may have been idyllic but today’s reality is more depressing.
The town now feels distinctly dated, the sterile and faded concrete and
uniformity now feels more akin to a Soviet era town than that of an English
commuter town. Milton Keynes is still very much alive and kicking but with
retailers and businesses largely clustered on the fringes the centre feels neglected
and sparse. The courtyards and walkways are now largely empty and filled with
scrubby overgrowth. Small shanty communities of the homeless had set up tents
in the many underpasses highlighting that this urban ideal had perhaps not been
the success that had been hoped for.
To the edge of the town centre a large half dome houses a ski slope.
Snow is generated and spewed onto a slope within the building. This seemed the
busiest part of the town, I imagine that the early town planners back in the
50s would have never imagined that the main hub of activity in their town would
be a ski slope!
I felt I needed to end my short venture into Buckinghamshire with a
return to peace and quiet so where better than the Peace Pagoda, situated just
outside of Milton Keynes.
Sat in a quiet park encircling a set of lakes is one of the UKs largest
Buddhist shrines. The pagoda sits atop a small hill and provides a peaceful
vantage to absorb the view and reflect. Nearby a tree has been adorned with
many ribbons and trinkets, memorials left by visitors. Each memento had a story
to tell, a child lost far too soon, a parent, a sibling, a friend, a beloved pet,
thousands of ribbons marking thousands of individual stories from past visitors
to this tree.
I finished the day with a walk around the lake. Buckinghamshire had been
an eclectic mix, the old to the new, the bustle of Aylesbury to the peace of
this park. I’d enjoyed my busy day of exploration but was now looking forward
to the next stop Northampton where I’d be leaving the South of England and
entering the Midlands. It was time to head on to my next stop.
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| Buckinghamshire County Council, Aylesbury |
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| Central Buckingham |
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| Stowe Gardens |
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| Stowe Gardens |
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| The Milton Keynes 'Pyramid' |
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| The Peace Pagoda |
