ISBN: 0 300 09584 8
Buckinghamshire is a county of contrasts. In the dense semi-rural suburbia close to London,
challenging early Modern Movement houses can be discovered alongside more conventional
contemporaries. Along the county's southern boundary the Thames is fringed by serene
riverside mansions and villas and by the playing fields of Eton. Further north, medieval churches
and manor houses shelter in the folds of the Chilterns, and the prodigious country seats and estate
villages built by the Rothschilds march across the Vale of Aylesbury. Several country houses
are on a magnificent scale; Georgian West Wycombe and Stowe, Victorian Cliveden and
Waddesdon are set in grounds of great splendour; Claydon House has a rococo interior of
unsurpassed richness.
There are also many small historic towns, such as Buckingham, Marlow and Wendover, which
have charmingly intimate and unspoilt areas. 20th century developments are equally fascinating.
The Slough Trading Estate, once vilified, is now renowned as a pioneering venture with some
remarkable factories. At Milton Keynes, old and new buildings have been welded into a bold
and imaginative urban design of international importance.
