Dorton House, Buckinghamshire

Dorton (or Dourton) is a village and civil parish in the Aylesbury Vale district of Buckinghamshire. It is in the western part of the county, about 5 miles (8 km) north of the Oxfordshire market town of Thame.

Dorton Halt railway station was a railway station serving the village of Dorton in Buckinghamshire. It was on what is now known as the Chiltern Main Line. The station was geographically nearer to Brill than Brill and Ludgershall railway station.

Dorton Spa is a chalybeate spring located between the villages of Dorton and Brill in Buckinghamshire, England, in a grove of trees called "Spa Wood". Chalybeate is defined as "a water or other liquor containing iron", the word's origin is Greek chalyps; chalybos, meaning steel; Chalyps being an ancient nation in Pontus famous for its steel. A nineteenth century chemical dictionary describes the Dorton Spa as the most celebrated chalybeate and from the account "there is nothing in England to compete with it, which is nearly four times as strongly impregnated with iron as Tunbridge waters and almost as powerful as the famed waters of Toplitz, Germany". The discolouration of the turf of Dorton by the iron oxide in its water was generally known by local people for hundreds of years. Little was heard of its medicinal effects apart from some skin disorders that could be cured and the custom of washing mangy dogs and diseased cattle in the water. With some improvements in the area's roads in the late 17th century and increased communication, more people heard of the Dorton waters. The number of people visiting became so great that damage to crops and fences made it necessary to restrain the peasantry to one path and to regulate the supply of water. The well was enclosed and 50–100 gallons were disposed of daily at a fixed price. The proprietor of the Dorton estate, Mr Ricketts of Dorton House, wished to allow public access to the water, so he erected a pump room and baths of an extensive and ornamental manner. This handsome structure, modelled on Greek architecture, was entered by a flight of stone steps and through a semicircular portico supported by nine circular columns with Corinthian capitals. A dome rose above the centre, and the ceiling of the spacious and lofty pump-room was supported by eight columns painted to resemble Sienna marble. Twelve acres (4.9 hectare) of park were laid out, and planted with evergreen and deciduous shrubs, and also a serpentine lake covering an acre. A large opening ceremony took place in 1830. For a short period it gained some celebrity; Dorton Spa had become a fashionable resort. A Grand Fête was held in 1837; other efforts were made to bring the establishment before the public. The fame of Dorton spread and stories of the effects of the waters grew. A man from Oxford with leprosy for more than 20 years was cured by the water. A woman of Buckingham, with scrofula was cured within six weeks. An elderly resident from Tetsworth who had been unable to walk, received great benefit in a case of a bleeding cancer; after treatment with the water he walked a considerable distance. Cures were also cited for hysteria, indigestion, bilious affections, worms, haemorrhages, rheumatism, fevers, ague, St Vitus's dance, dropsy, herpes, ulcers, abscesses, general nervous diseases, a host of skin disorders, and even total blindness. A depot or agency office was opened in London for the sale of the water. The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford has a label from a bottle of Dorton water. A surgeon who lived in nearby Oakley wrote a book which discussed and praised the Spa.Grandiose schemes were proposed showing ten separate baths, two ballrooms, a reading room and a billiard room. Whether all these schemes were completed is subject to conjecture. A hotel in Brill was also built, the Spa Hotel, overlooking the spa to accommodate the visitors. (The hotel was pulled down after damage sustained by a German doodle-bug exploding nearby in World War II). But in 1841 the new Queen Victoria did not come to Dorton. Because of Royal patronage, Tunbridge Wells became "Royal Tunbridge Wells", and Leamington Spa became "Royal Leamington Spa". Dorton missed out: its isolated situation made it impossible to obtain popularity; the sanguine expectations of the promoters were not realised. All that remains is a small circular brick well building with a curved wooden door which is hidden within privately owned "iron fenced" Spa Wood. Parts of the original columns can also be found within the wood.

Wood Siding railway station was a halt in Bernwood Forest, Buckinghamshire, England. It opened in 1871 as a terminus of a short horse-drawn tramway built to assist the transport of goods from and around the Duke of Buckingham's extensive estates in Buckinghamshire, as well as connect the Duke's estates to the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway at Quainton Road. In 1872, a lobbying campaign by residents of the town of Brill led to the tramway being converted for passenger use and extended a short distance beyond Wood Siding to Brill railway station, becoming known as the Brill Tramway. The railway was cheaply built, ungraded, and used poor quality locomotives; services were very slow, initially limited to a speed of 5 miles per hour (8 km/h). In the 1890s it was planned to extend the tramway to Oxford, but the scheme was abandoned. Instead, the operation of the line was taken over by the Metropolitan Railway in 1899. Between 1908 and 1910 the station was completely rebuilt on a bridge over the newly built Chiltern Main Line of the Great Western Railway, which passed directly beneath the station. In 1933 the Metropolitan Railway was taken into public ownership and became the Metropolitan line of London Transport. As a result, Wood Siding became a station on the London Underground network, despite being over 45 miles (72 km) from the City of London. London Transport's new management aimed to move away from goods services to concentrate on passenger services. As the line served a very lightly populated rural area, the new management believed it very unlikely that it could ever be made viable. Wood Siding was closed, along with the rest of the line, from 30 November 1935. All infrastructure associated with the station was removed in 1936; the remains of the bridge which supported the station are still in place.

Ashendon Junction in Buckinghamshire, England, was a major mainline railway junction where, from July 1910, the Great Western Railway's (GWR) London-Birmingham direct route diverged from the Great Central Railway's (GCR) main London-Sheffield route. It was near the small village of Ashendon, about 10 miles north-east of Oxford. The junction was where what is now the Chiltern Main Line (formerly the "Birmingham Direct Line" aka "Bicester cut-off" of the GWR), inaugurated in 1910, joined the post-1906 "Alternative Route" alignment of the GCR. It was located 3 miles 44 chains (5.71 km) north-west of today's Haddenham and Thame Parkway; 44 miles 4 chains (70.89 km) from London Paddington via Northolt Junction, and 45 miles 31 chains (73.04 km) from London Marylebone via Neasden and Northolt Junctions. It was a high-speed flying junction carrying southbound GWR trains from Birmingham via Bicester North (Engineer's Line Reference NAJ2) on an embankment with a girder bridge over the top of northbound Great Central trains travelling from London Marylebone on to the 90 mph five-mile link to Grendon Underwood Junction (Engineer's Line Reference GUA) where they rejoined the original Great Central Main Line towards Brackley and beyond to the East Midlands and North.

Wotton House, Wotton Underwood, Buckinghamshire, England, is a stately home built between 1704 and 1714, to a design very similar to that of the contemporary version of Buckingham House. The house is an example of English Baroque and a Grade I listed building. The architect is uncertain although William Winde, the designer of Buckingham House, has been suggested. The grounds were laid out by George London and Henry Wise with a formal parterre and a double elm avenue leading down to a lake. Fifty years later William Pitt the Elder and Capability Brown improved the landscape, creating pleasure grounds with two lakes. After a fire gutted the main house in 1820 Richard Grenville, 1st Earl Temple, commissioned John Soane to rebuild it. After the 3rd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, the last direct Grenville male heir, died in 1889, the house was let to a succession of tenants; including, notably; the philanthropist, Leo Bernard William Bonn (1850-1929) who became deaf while residing at Wotton, and later founded (1911) what became the RNID. His son and heir, the decorated First World War hero, Major Walter Basil Louis Bonn, DSO, MC, MA (Oxon.) FRSA, FZSL (1885-1973) is also listed as resident at Wotton House; in the New College archives, at Oxford University; during his three years as an Oxford undergraduate, there, 1903–1906, while living fifteen miles away from his family home of many years, at Wotton House. In 1929 Wotton was bought by Major Michael Beaumont MP who renovated it. In 1947 Beaumont sold the estate to a charity who divided the grounds into small parcels and let the main house to two boys' schools. By 1957 the house had become derelict and was due to be demolished when Elaine Brunner found it and with the help of the architect Donald Insall restored most of the Soane features. Her daughter and son-in-law David Gladstone have continued the work she started. The South Pavilion (the former coach house) was sold separately in 1947. It has had a number of notable owners including Sir Arthur Bryant and Sir John Gielgud, and is now co-owned by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife Cherie, as well as David Gladstone, with Gladstone owning the main building (shown above) and the former British Prime Minister owning the smaller house next to it, with the fields of land being co-owned.

Rushbeds Wood is a 56-hectare (140-acre) nature reserve near Wotton Underwood in Buckinghamshire, managed by the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust (BBOWT). It is a surviving fragment of the ancient Bernwood Forest. The reserve is part of Rushbeds Wood and Railway Cutting, an 80.2-hectare (198-acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest. This includes a section of the Chiltern Main Line railway cutting, which runs along the north-east side of the BBOWT reserve.The site is ancient woodland on heavy clay soils which are often waterlogged. The invertebrate fauna are described by Natural England as "exceptional", including over thirty butterfly species, such as the nationally rare black hairstreak and the scarce wood white and purple emperor. The woodland is wet ash and maple, with other trees including elm and hornbeam. The understorey has species indicative of long tree cover, such as Poa nemoralis and wood millet. There are many common breeding birds and in the ponds and ditches there are breeding smooth and great crested newts. The railway cutting is dominated by upright brome grass.There is access to the BBOWT site by a railway bridge at the eastern corner of the site.

Wotton Underwood is a village and civil parish in Buckinghamshire, England, 7 miles (11 km) north of Thame, Oxfordshire. The toponym is derived from the Old English for "farm near a wood". It is recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle of AD 848 as Wudotun and in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Oltone. The affix "Underwood" was added later to distinguish the village from other places also called Wotton. The affix means "near the wood" and refers to the village's nearness to the ancient Bernwood Forest.The present manor house in the village, Wotton House, dates from the early eighteenth century, but has been much altered since, notably by John Soane in the 1820s. The former stables, now called South Pavilion, was the home of actor Sir John Gielgud; it was bought by Tony and Cherie Blair for £4m, in 2008.

Chilton is a village and civil parish in Aylesbury Vale district in Buckinghamshire, England. It is in the west of the county, about 4 miles (6.4 km) north of Thame in Oxfordshire. Chilton parish includes the hamlet of Easington (not to be confused with the Oxfordshire village of Easington).

Wotton was a railway station at Wotton Underwood, Buckinghamshire, on the Great Central Railway's link line between Calvert and Ashendon Junction.

Wotton railway station was a small station in Buckinghamshire, England, built by the Duke of Buckingham in 1871. Part of a private horse-drawn tramway designed to carry freight from and around his lands in Buckinghamshire, Wotton station was intended to serve the Duke's home at Wotton House and the nearby village of Wotton Underwood. In 1872 the line was extended to the nearby village of Brill, converted to passenger use, equipped with steam locomotives, and renamed the Brill Tramway. In the 1880s, it was proposed to extend the line to Oxford, but the operation of the line was instead taken over by London's Metropolitan Railway. Although situated in an unpopulated area, Wotton station was relatively well used. It saw the highest passenger numbers of any station on the line other than the terminus at Brill railway station and the junction with the main line to London at Quainton Road railway station, and it also carried large quantities of milk from the area's dairy farms. In 1906 the Great Western and Great Central Joint Railway (commonly known as the Alternative Route) was opened, crossing the Brill Tramway at Wotton. Although the lines were not connected, a station (also named Wotton) was built on the new line very near the existing Wotton station; the two stations shared a stationmaster.In 1933 the Metropolitan Railway, which leased the line, was taken into public ownership and became the Metropolitan line of London Transport. Despite being a small rural station 49 miles (79 km) by train from the City of London, Wotton became a station on the London Underground. Frank Pick, the Chief Executive of the London Passenger Transport Board, aimed to abandon freight operations on the London Underground network, and saw no way in which the more distant parts of the former Metropolitan Railway could ever become viable passenger routes. As a result, all passenger services north of Aylesbury were withdrawn between 1935 and 1936; the last trains on the Brill Tramway ran on 30 November 1935. The line then reverted to the descendants of the Duke of Buckingham, but having no funds and no rolling stock they were unable to operate it. On 2 April 1936, the line's entire infrastructure, including Wotton station, was sold for scrap at auction. Except for a small building which once housed the Brill Tramway's forge, all the station buildings at Wotton have been demolished.

Addingrove is a former hamlet in Buckinghamshire, about 4 miles (6.4 km) northwest of the market town of Thame in neighbouring Oxfordshire. The settlement is on the B4011 road between Oakley and Long Crendon. The largely depopulated former settlement now consists of only Addingrove Farm and a cottage. It is in the civil parish of Oakley.