The Monday Photo

This old farmhouse by the green at Woughton on the Green, appears to be either Georgian or 19th Century. But which is it?

Actually it’s neither. Behind the chequered brickwork is a timber framed 16th Century building; two hundred years older than it appears and one of the oldest domestic buildings in Milton Keynes. In the left hand front room there’s a fine, large, 16th Century fireplace.

The rear wing hasn’t been recased so still shows it’s massive timber framing; part of it can just be seen by walking round to the right from the camera position. The chimney to the right is in that wing.

The central gabled projection and ground floor bay windows were added to the Georgian front in the 19th Century. Imagine the house before it was updated, with no centre projection, timber framing (probably massive like the rear wing) and a thatched roof.

Every house has a story, if you know what to look for.

This Victorian era house was built for Alice de Rothschild around 1880-90, as a lodge or gatehouse for Eythrope Pavilion.

She had bought the Eythrope estate in 1875, a year after her brother Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild bought the adjacent property, Waddesdon Manor. She built Eythrope Pavilion as a day retreat from the manor between 1876 and 1879.

The Monday Photo

At first glance, these semi-detached houses looked to me like just another example of those 50s and 60s ex-council houses, the type that are everywhere in this part of the world; I grew up in one.

But when I noticed their unusual, round, paired chimney stacks I looked more closely.

Then I saw the brick pilasters (like flat, partial columns) at the corners and in the centres of the front walls. These six pairs of homes were built as estate cottages for Biddlesden Park, in about 1830.

Our old council house was large but plain; these estate cottages are nicely detailed and bear closer attention. The windows have flat brick arches and the front doors have hoodmoulds to divert rainwater away.

The brickwork is in a chequer pattern. As well as the round chimneys and pilasters, the cottages have wave edged eaves and bargeboards.

Original
These might still be the original wooden windows, but the early 50s council house I grew up in had the Crittal Company’s metal framed windows, replaced in the mid 90s by double glazed units. When that happened I took three of the windows away and built them into a motorcycle shed that I still use today.

Each pair of cottages seems to have been knocked into one. In this nearest pair you can see that the nearest doorway has been blocked up and the two front gardens have been made into one. It’s a similar story with the rest.

In contrast, just down the hill are a couple of council type semi-detached houses, similar to the one I grew up in; it’s interesting to compare the two types.

A little further down the hill is the county boundary with Northants, subject of a recent Monday Photo. The county boundary marker is in the middle of the bridge; the boundary following the course of the river.

There you go, two things to see for the price of one.

Visitors to Stowe could look up to see the elegant inner face of the arch as they entered the grounds.

Today I’m going to show you some less usual views of Stowe’s monumental Corinthian Arch, a well known landmark in North Bucks.

It is built in the Corinthian order, most ornate of the Classic Revival styles. On Corinthian buildings capitals, the top-most part of columns, are decorated with carved acanthus leaves.

Designed in 1765 by Thomas Pitt, 1st Baron Camelford, the Corinthian Arch was finished in 1767; dendro-dating found a felling year of 1766 for some of the timbers inside it. The arch was built as part of an entrance scheme to show off Stowe House, the home of Richard, Earl Temple.

The position of the arch and avenue was all carefully worked out. Stowe Avenue, rising up from Buckingham, points right through the Corinthian Arch to the centre of the South front of Stowe House, three quarters of a mile beyond the arch.

The front and rear faces of the arch are quite similar, but on the rear in this shot we can see four engaged (partly set in the walls) great columns. Compared with the front view in the next photo, they protrude much further from the face of the building.

The Monday Photo

Happy New Year to all my readers!

Now on with the post…

This pair of timber framed cottages are on a side road which used to be the main road through Simpson village.

It used to be the road between Newport Pagnell and Fenny Stratford, which was diverted when a Milton Keynes grid road put an enbankment over the original route.

These cottages were built in the 17th Century but have since been refronted; the nearest cottage in the 19th Century, the furthest one in the 18th Century.

The bricks on the front of the closest cottage are greater in height than the ones in the far one; bricks have varied in shape over the centuries so this can be a good clue to the age of a wall, though not in this case to the age of the building.

Refronting was the modernisation of the times, though you can see here that the nearest cottage didn’t continue the work around to the gable end; it makes it obvious that the place has been refronted. The furthest cottage, it seems, did; no timber framework is visible in its gable end wall.

The thatched barn in the background is typical of the many barns that used to be in Buckinghamshire with its black painted weatherboarding.

Many of them were not thatched when I was a kid growing up in the 1960s and poking my nose into barns, but were roofed with corrugated iron, often painted black.

Like the cottages it is also timber framed and a listed building. You can find details of listed buildings in England online, and see for yourself what’s listed where you are. At the link, Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes are both listed under “South East”.

Here's a look at some of my favourite posts from 2022, just to whet your appetite for next year.

If you can think of any new subjects you would like me to cover (In North Bucks of course) please get in touch! I can't guarantee to use them, but I'll certainly look into each idea.

Half a House is Better Than None

From February, a road widening scheme in Winslow from over 100 years ago. It had been a “a very sharp and dangerous corner” said the Buckingham Advertiser and North Bucks Free Press, when the work was completed.