Buckinghamshire
County of southeast central England
Area:
1,565 sq km/604 sq mi
Towns and Cities:
Aylesbury (administrative headquarters), Beaconsfield, Buckingham,
High Wycombe, Olney
Physical:
Chiltern Hills; Vale of Aylesbury
Features:
Chequers (country seat of the prime minister); Burnham Beeches; the
church of the poet Gray's `Elegy´ at Stoke Poges; Cliveden, a
country house designed by Charles Barry (now a hotel; it was once
the home of Nancy, Lady Astor); Bletchley Park, home of World
War II code-breaking activities, now used as a training post for
GCHQ (Britain's electronic surveillance centre); homes of the
poets William Cowper at Olney and John Milton at Chalfont St Giles,
and of the Tory prime minister Disraeli at Hughenden; grave of
William Penn, Quaker founder of Pennsylvania, at Jordans, near
Chalfont St Giles; Stowe landscape gardens
Industry:
Engineering; furniture (chiefly beech); paper; printing; railway workshops;
motor cars
Agriculture:
About 75 % of the land under cultivation, fertile soil; cereals (barley,
wheat, oats); cattle, pigs, poultry, sheep
Population:
(1997 est) 468,700
Famous People:
John Hampden, William Herschel, Ben Nicholson, George Gilbert Scott,
Edmund Waller
History:
The refusal of the politician John Hampden to pay ship-money in 1636
was partly instrumental in precipitating the English Civil War;
an early skirmish was fought on the outskirts of Aylesbury in
1642.
Houses and Schools
Buckinghamshire contains a number of fine houses, including Claydon
House, Waddesdon Manor, and West Wycombe House (home of Francis
Dashwood of `Hell-Fire Club ´ fame), with their priceless collections
of art treasures. There are lesser houses of interest at Gayhurst
(once the home of Everard Digby, one of the Gunpowder Plot conspirators),
Nether Winchendon, and Tyringham. Stowe School (1923) now occupies
the former residence of the duke of Buckinghamshire.
|
Top
