The main entrance to the bank is quite impressive with its different orders or concentric layers of arches, a little like a Norman doorway. The date plaques are either side of the arch.

Like Winslow’s TSB bank the Lloyds bank in Stony Stratford closed this year, just two of a large number lost across the country.

I hadn’t realised the Stony branch of Lloyds had gone until I tried to use their cashpoint last week, just round the corner from where I’d been working in Church Street.

Instead of the ATM I expected, I found myself looking at a stout piece of plywood bolted to the wall where the machine used to be. I glanced up and saw the estate agent's sign. This Grade 2 listed building is available for rent, not for sale.

The Monday Photo

There’s a good chance at least one of the Christmas cards you’ve had this year had a mail coach on it.

The coaches are almost always red, there’s a chap on the back blowing a horn, and the snow lays round about, deep and crisp and even.

These coaches relied on the turnpike roads to reach their destinations, because they knew they’d be maintained with the money turnpikes took from tolls. The bridge took the 1722 Wendover and Buckingham Turnpike across Shipton Brook, just down the hill from the hamlet of the same name, next to Winslow.

Here’s another view of Shipton Bridge in slightly warmer weather, and here’s one more, of the 18th Century arched bridge from the middle of the brook in mid summer.

I can just imagine four horses pulling a red coach over this bridge in the depths of winter. The horn is blowing. Everyone on the top of the coach has bundled up against the intense cold. The snow is at least a foot deep and there are no other wheel tracks.

This will be the last Monday Photo of 2021; I’ll be taking a couple of weeks off over Christmas and the first week of the new year, returning on Monday 10th January. But there’s one more Thursday post to go this year, on the 23rd of December. See you then.

This illustration featured in a post on my now mothballed blog Roger the Reader. Critical Mess was a 1983 cartoon book, written and illustrated by Dan Pearce.

A completely new heating system at the historic* headquarters of the North Bucks Wanderer means it will be reliably cozy this winter.

But emptying my vast attic and extensive cellars to give the plumbers access, along with keeping out of their way as they installed radiators and ran pipework, took half a week of my time.

So I haven't had time to create a post for this Thursday. Sorry about that, but things will be back to normal next week, just in time for me to take a couple of weeks off for Christmas and New Year! Oh well...

Meanwhile, is there anything you'd like me to take a look at, in North Bucks?

*A fine example of early 60s council house vernacular...

For all you keen explorers of North Bucks, nothing is more off putting than cold feet on a day out. So seeing as it's coming up to Christmas, what you need is... socks!

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The Monday Photo

In the Decorated period of church design, (1280 to 1377) the favourite ornament was the ball-flower.

But this isn’t just a ball-flower, and it’s not from the Decorated period; it was carved in 1863 when this church was refurbished.

This is a closer look at the pulpit of All Saints, Hulcott, which I showed you last week. It’s an example of the Gothic Revival style.

A ball-flower or ballflower is a carved globular flower with three curved petals. They curve round a smaller globe in the centre, though this example isn’t very crisp now.

The four symmetrical petals you can see around this one aren’t seen in carvings from the Decorated period. The ballflower stands alone, usually in evenly spaced rows and sometimes alternating with other ornaments.

You are most likely to see them in the concave part of a decorative moulding around a column top or along a wall.

The ornaments of this pulpit alternate too. They are both carved inside the same square shape, so it’s not obvious at first. But this is where close study pays off; it’s finding those little details that make looking at churches so worthwhile.

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The outline of the access to the rood loft and the corbel that supported it are still visible in the middle of the picture. Also visible are cracks in the wall, on both sides of the chancel arch on the left.

This is All Saints, at Hulcott; it’s in a bad way.

There are serious structural problems that show up as cracks in the walls, visible in some of these photos. The floor is below ground level and floods in heavy rain. The state of the bell frame means that only the smallest of the three bells can be rung, and only occasionally.

Despite these problems, this 14th Century building is not unsafe and is open during daylight hours. (My thanks to the parishioners who delayed locking up while I took my last photos inside) It is still consecrated.

The Monday Photo

In the middle of the English Civil War this 17th Century barn was nearly new; a modern building.

During that war, in early March 1644 Cromwell brought his men here to camp for the night. In the morning they would attack the Royalists at Hillesden, two miles away on the other side of the Great Ouse valley.

I think this barn was chosen to be one corner of his encampment. From this point Cromwell’s men could keep watch on the nearby road junction, where roads lead North and West towards Hillesden.

I make a small percentage from sales through Amazon links, no matter what you buy while you are on their site. This helps me but costs you nothing, so if you make a purchase via the NBW, thank you.

A couple of hundred yards along the road to Middle Claydon is St. Michael’s Church. I believe that the church would have been the next corner of the camp.

The spire and tower, or steeple, of the church is 19th century, but the village has been called Steeple Claydon since well before then. I think there was a previous tower and spire; it would have made a good vantage point to watch out for attack from, especially as the church is right at the top of the hill.

South of the barn and church would have been the rest of the encampment, and there are earthworks labelled as intrenchments on older maps, now partly ploughed away.

There’s a bit of confusion about these though, as other earthworks from a shrunken Medieval village are also in this area. It might be that some of these were used to help defend the camp and reduce the amount of any digging that was needed.

The camp barn has a brass plaque in the gable end wall next to the road; you can see it in the photo.

The plaque hasn’t been polished for a long time and it’s almost unreadable from ground level. But I managed to decipher it by zooming in on a close up photo I took.

It says, in a gothic script complete with some oddly placed capital letters:

The Camp Barn.
Around this spot
The Army of the Parliament
under the command of Cromwell
was Encamped March 1644
And on the 3^d of that month
Advanced from hence
to the attack on
Hillesden House.

Cromwell’s forces successfully attacked Hillesden before nine the next morning, usually said to be 4th March. But in a letter written by the Royalist Thomas Verney not long after he was captured, he wrote that the attack had been on the 3rd of the month; a Sunday.

I use Pentax cameras and lenses for the photos in this blog.