Author: BucSocWPAdmin

Bill Robins presentation to a full house at the University of Buckingham’s Vinson Auditorium on 12 April was well received – the audience included students, members of Buckingham Society and many visitors from a number of military associations.

For a full report of the presentation click here

The Society held its AGM on 26 November at the University of Buckingham’s Vinson Centre under the (acting) chairmanship of Ian Orton.

Around 40 members attended the meeting, although this number could have been inflated by non-members who had come to listen to Warren Whytes talk, which immediately followed.

Mr Orton gave a comprehensive report of the Society’s activities for the year supplemented by contributions by Gill Jones, the membership secretary and David Child, the treasurer.

Gill reported that we now have 193 members compared with 179 a year ago.

According to David the Society finances are in a healthy state. As a consequence there is no need for an increase in subscriptions.

Mr Orton reported that following the end of the Covid-19 pandemic normality had returned with both the executive committee and special interest group meeting on a physical, rather than a virtual, basis.
More importantly, for the second year in succession, the Society was able to reinstate both the annual garden party and lecture as well as the AGM.
For the second year running the Society had a stall at the Celebrate Buckingham Day complete with a Roll the Dice game. This attracted a lot of interest as well as generating new members.
Other social events the Society oversaw during the course of the year included another very interesting tree walk led by Michael Hunt in May.
Michael, one of our members, once again demonstrated his amazing knowledge of our local trees, one of the defining characteristics of the town. Going forward, with Michael’s help, the Society would like to organise more tree walks along with more talks and events.
The Society once again ran its Buckingham Trader of the Year Competition with Smith and Clay winning the title in 2022. Looking forward the Society would like to resume its Buckingham Conservation Awards.
As mentioned above we were again able to reinstate the annual garden party and lecture.
This year, the ever popular Barry Smith, the head gardener at Stowe gave the lecture. The garden party took place in the gardens of Ondaatje Hall, now the home of Professor James Tooley, the University’s vice-chancellor and his wife Cynthia.
Land use planning-related matters continue to dominate the Society’s activities and the annual report outlined both the scope and range of its activities along with the challenges faced going forward.
All the existing members of the executive committee agreed to stand for re-election and were elected unanimously.
Ian Orton was elected as chairman, a post which has remained vacant since the previous AGM.

Although the weather was not as kind to us as it might have been, those of us who went on the most recent of the popular tree walks organised by the Buckingham Society and led by Michael Hunt, were rewarded with an interesting and informative two hours. The walk covered the trees in the Heartlands (across from the bridge from Cornwalls Meadow) via the old churchyard, and part of the University of Buckingham campus, ending up in Chandos Park.

It would be fair to say that Michael’s breadth of knowledge outstrips this writer’s capacity to retain more than a tiny portion of the details given to us, but the overpowering impression that does remain is that Buckingham has a wonderful range of trees; something we must ensure remains the case as the town grows. There will be further walks in due course, and everyone is encouraged to join at least one of them when the opportunity presents itself.

Anthony Ralph

The Buckingham Society annual lecture was given by Bill Robins to a full house at the Buckingham University’s Vinson Building.

The talk covered clandestine agencies hosted in many of the great houses around North Buckinghamshire during the Second World War.

See the report by clicking here

After 17 years in Buckingham, Sunil and Rita Gandhi left the Post Office at the Gingerbread House for the last time on Monday October 11^th.

Throughout those 17 years Sunil and Rita provided a simply brilliant service to all of their customers as could be seen from the great tributes posted on Facebook where people almost queued up to sing their praises. Always ready with a smile, a kind word and good advice, Sunil and Rita will be missed.

To mark the occasion of their leaving, at the suggestion of Buckingham Society member Una Robinson the Society presented Sunil and Rita with a framed print showing a series of pictures of notable Buckingham buildings.

The print was taken from an original painting by Buckingham Society member Peter Bowtell.
The picture shows Una with Rita and Sunil and Society Membership Secretary Gill Jones.

The railway came to Buckingham in 1850.  It could have been here even earlier, complete with a large locomotive and carriage works if, as is generally believed, that plan hadn’t been scuppered by the First Duke of Buckingham & Chandos who would not allow the railway line to cross his estate at Stowe. So, instead the line went via Wolverton – how different Buckingham might have been if the original plan had gone ahead!

The line lasted until 1964 when passenger services were stopped. Final total closure took place in 1966 with the last train arriving on April 4^th carrying Her Majesty the Queen who had come on a visit to Buckingham. That visit, along with other important events in the life of Buckingham’s railway, is celebrated in a new information board that has been installed by the Buckingham Society on the remains of the former station along the Railway Walk next to the University of Buckingham’s car park in Station Road.

Funded with the help of the Buckingham and Villages Community Board, the information board was unveiled by Franz Rothe, a lifelong Buckingham resident who first suggested the idea in a letter to the Advertiser a few years ago. The Buckingham Society hopes that people strolling along the Railway Walk, which follows the former railway line, will find the board of interest.

The picture shows Franz standing alongside the information board between Roger Edwards, Chair of the Buckingham Society, and James Tooley, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Buckingham.