Mentmore

Mentmore Towers, historically known simply as "Mentmore", is a 19th-century English country house built between 1852 and 1854 for the Rothschild family in the village of Mentmore in Buckinghamshire. Sir Joseph Paxton and his son-in-law, George Henry Stokes, designed the building in the 19th-century revival of late 16th and early 17th-century Elizabethan and Jacobean styles called Jacobethan. The house was designed for the banker and collector of fine art Baron Mayer de Rothschild as a country home, and as a display case for his collection of fine art. The mansion has been described as one of the greatest houses of the Victorian era. Mentmore was inherited by Hannah Primrose, Countess of Rosebery, née Rothschild, and owned by her descendants, the Earls of Rosebery. Mentmore was the first of what were to become virtual Rothschild estates in the Vale of Aylesbury. Baron Mayer de Rothschild began purchasing land in the area in 1846. Later, other members of the family built houses at Tring in Hertfordshire, Ascott, Aston Clinton, Waddesdon and Halton. Much of the estate was sold in 1944, but the mansion, its grounds, formal gardens several farms and the majority of the village of Mentmore remained in the ownership of Harry Primrose, 6th Earl of Rosebery, until his death in 1974. The Earl’s executors explored the possibility of Mentmore Towers along with its contents being preserved intact as a heritage property and opened to the public, as has been the case with some other National Trust properties. Despite prolonged discussions between the Executors and Government representatives over the following three years, no agreement to save the house for the nation was reached. Thus, in 1977, the contents of the house were sold at public auction by Sotheby’s. The following year the empty mansion with its formal gardens and 80 acres were sold to the Maharishi Foundation who occupied it for the next two decades. In 1999, it was again sold, to investor Simon Halabi, who planned to build additional hotel and conference facilities; the plan did not proceed and the property was allowed to deteriorate. From 1992 to 2015 the Mentmore Golf and Country Club operated on land previously owned by the estate. Mentmore Towers is a Grade I listed building, with its park and gardens listed Grade II*.

Mentmore Stud and Crafton Stud were thoroughbred horse breeding operations that were part of the Mentmore Towers estate on the Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire borders, England. The Crafton stud farm is located at Crafton, Buckinghamshire, approximately one mile from Mentmore Towers and was founded circa 1850 by Baron Mayer de Rothschild. The most notable horses from this era included Rothschild's founding stallion King Tom and his offspring Favonius and Hannah who between them won the Epsom Derby, 1,000 Guineas, Oaks, and St Leger in 1871. Mentmore Stud was built between 1913 and 1914 by Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery to complement his nearby stud farm at Crafton which he had acquired through his 1878 marriage to Baron Mayer de Rothschild's daughter Hannah. The first two stallions to stand at Mentmore were Cicero and Neil Gow. The 5th Earl won The Derby three times with Crafton-bred horses at Ladas, Sir Visto, and Cicero. In 1929 both Crafton and Mentmore studs were inherited by Harry Primrose, 6th Earl of Rosebery who subsequently bred numerous winners; two of the most notable stallions bred at Mentmore were Epsom Derby winners Blue Peter (1939) and Ocean Swell (1944).

Ledburn is a hamlet in the parish of Mentmore, in Buckinghamshire, England.

The Great Train Robbery was the robbery of £2.61 million (calculated to present-day value of £58 million), from a Royal Mail train heading from Glasgow to London on the West Coast Main Line in the early hours of 8 August 1963 at Bridego Railway Bridge, Ledburn, near Mentmore in Buckinghamshire, England.After tampering with the lineside signals to bring the train to a halt, a gang of 15, led by Bruce Reynolds, attacked the train. Other gang members included Gordon Goody, Buster Edwards, Charlie Wilson, Roy James, John Daly, Jimmy White, Ronnie Biggs, Tommy Wisbey, Jim Hussey, Bob Welch and Roger Cordrey, as well as three men known only as numbers "1", "2" and "3"; two were later identified as Harry Smith and Danny Pembroke. A 16th man, an unnamed retired train driver, was also present.With careful planning based on inside information from an individual known as "The Ulsterman", whose real identity has never been established, the robbers escaped with over £2.61 million. The bulk of the stolen money has never been recovered. The gang did not use any firearms, though Jack Mills, the train driver, was beaten over the head with a metal bar and suffered serious head injuries. After his partial recovery, Mills returned to work doing light duties. He retired in 1967 and died in 1970 due to an unrelated illness. Mills never overcame the trauma of the robbery. After the robbery, the gang hid at Leatherslade Farm. The police found this hideout, and incriminating evidence, a monopoly board with fingerprints, led to the eventual arrest and conviction of most of the gang. The ringleaders were sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Cheddington railway station serves the village of Cheddington, in Buckinghamshire, England, and the surrounding villages, including Ivinghoe and Mentmore. The station is 36 miles 8 chains (36.10 mi; 58.10 km) north west of London Euston on the West Coast Main Line. It is operated by London Northwestern Railway, which also provides all services. The station has four platforms, each with 12 carriage capacity, but only platforms 3 and 4 are used regularly and platforms 1 and 2 are used only during engineering works and disruption. Platforms 2 and 3 form a centre island. The main station buildings are located on Platform 1 adjacent to the car park. Access to the other platforms is gained by a footbridge. The ticket office closed on 28 March 2013 and the station is now unstaffed. Although starting in December 2017 there is a security guard on the station around the clock, the ticket building is still closed.Cheddington was formerly a junction for the London & North Western Railway's branch line to Aylesbury High Street. This branch terminated in the east of Aylesbury and made no connection to the GCR/Metropolitan Railway station in that town. The branch closed to passengers in 1953 but with freight services continuing until 1964. The trackless edge of the Aylesbury branch platform is still in evidence at Cheddington and part of the old track bed of the branch is now used as the station's approach road. Just over 1.2 miles (2 km) north of this station, on the stretch of line between Cheddington and Leighton Buzzard, is Bridego Bridge, the scene of the Great Train Robbery of 1963.

Horton is a hamlet in the parish of Ivinghoe, in Buckinghamshire, England. It is in the civil parish of Slapton. The name Horton is a common one in England. It derives from Old English horu 'dirt' and tūn 'settlement, farm, estate', presumably meaning 'farm on muddy soil'.Although in the parish of Ivinghoe, the hamlet is nearer to Cheddington with its shops and churches, so that is the main village to which most residents of Horton feel most attached. On the 14 February 1942 a Royal Air Force De Havilland Dragon Rapide (R5927) was operating a training flight out of RAF Yatesbury. The pilots lost control of the aircraft after hitting a balloon cable. The aircraft came down in an area of Horton known as Wiggins Field & caught fire on impact. All six crew & one person in the ground died in the accident.The hamlet of Horton was held after the Norman Conquest by the de Brocas family. The hamlet is very small, but a few new modern houses have been built over the last twenty years, most notably Brocas Way and The Grange. The latter was built in the 1970s as a dower house for Horton Hall. Horton Hall is a large moated farmhouse with 18th-century origins. It is probably on the site of the original manor or hall. It was the home of Norman Shand-Kydd, a charity fund-raiser, and former champion amateur jockey, who bred horses on the adjoining farm. Two 16th-century half-timbered cottages remain in the village. One, still known as King's Head Cottage, used to be an inn. The other, which is older, is a renovated Tudor hall on the outskirts of the hamlet.

Crafton is a hamlet in the civil parish of Mentmore, in Buckinghamshire, England.The hamlet's name is Anglo Saxon in origin, and means 'farm where saffron grows'. Edith of Wessex, a queen of England, had a hunting lodge in the small area between Mentmore and Crafton known as Berrystead. The remains of the Lodge, converted in the 15th century to a farmhouse, were demolished when Mentmore Towers was under construction in the mid 19th century. The hamlet while in the ecclesiastic parish of Wing, is nearer to Wingrave. It is however under the jurisdiction the parish council of Mentmore. There are two 16th century farmhouses, one of which (known as Hellesthorpe) has the unusual distinction of having a Crafton postal address, but is in the parish of Wingrave. Many residents of the hamlet are equally confused by their parish's whereabouts, most have chosen to worship and be buried at Mentmore, the village most socially connected to Crafton. Crafton once had a small Methodist chapel; this is now a private house. The remainder of the settlement comprises small terraced 18th century cottages. However the hamlet was substantially rebuilt after the 1850s when it became part of the Mentmore estate of Baron Mayer de Rothschild. In addition to building some cottages the Baron built his famed Crafton Stud farm in the hamlet. In the short space of ten years following its creation the stud farm bred two Epsom Derby winners for the Baron. These were Ladas and Sir Visto. One of the most attractive buildings in the hamlet is Keeper's Cottage, originally the home of the head game-keeper it also served as the lodge to the Crafton drive of Mentmore Towers. The hamlet is reached only by one small cul-de-sac road. It contains no public house or shop.

Grove is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Slapton, Buckinghamshire, England. It is on the border with Bedfordshire, just to the north of Mentmore. It is the size of some hamlets, but it is distinct as a village because it had its own parish church. The place name is fairly self-explanatory, as it means 'grove', or a copse of trees. It was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Grova, and was considered a separate village even then. In 1961 the parish had a population of 12. On 1 April 1982 the parish was abolished and merged with Slapton.In medieval times there was an abbey or priory of nuns in the parish, founded in 1169 by Henry II and attached to Fontevrault Abbey in France. Following the wars with France it was given to the dean and Canons of Windsor. The remains of this abbey were fully excavated in the late 1960s just before they were lost forever in connection with the sand-quarrying industry of Leighton Buzzard. It has been suggested that before this Grove may once have been an important place of worship in even more ancient times, thus leading to its establishment as a separate parish. The parish church was dedicated to St. Michael, the dragon slayer. There was also in addition to the priory, a house of Cistercian monks, subordinate to Woburn Abbey. Immediately adjoining Grove was the lost hamlet known as South Waddon, today this remains only as the name of a nearby farm; however earth workings in the area suggest a substantial settlement if not fortifications. Grove Church was converted into a small private house in the late 1970s. The area that has become the sitting room of the house has the macabre feature of a Medieval human skeleton buried under a glass panel. The skull is surrounded in turn by the skeletons of small birds, thought to have been put there to ward off evil spirits. Part of the churchyard containing the newest graves was retained by the church authorities, following their controversial decision to sell the church. It remains today but is closed for further burials. A large farmhouse dominating the village, was during the early 1960s turned into a Victorian gothic mansion complete with clock tower when it was the property of the Shand-Kydd family. The house overlooks and indeed is a landmark for the boats on The Grand Union Canal which actually flows through the centre of the village. A former lock-keeper's cottage at nearby Grove Lock was in 2001 converted into a public house and restaurant.

Cheddington is a village and civil parish in the Buckinghamshire district of the ceremonial county of Buckinghamshire, England. The parish has an area of 1,429 acres (578 ha). The village is about 6 miles north-east of Aylesbury and three miles north of Tring in Hertfordshire. The hamlet of Cooks Wharf has grown up where the main road into the village from Pitstone crosses the Grand Union Canal.

Ascott House, sometimes referred to as simply Ascott, is a Grade II* listed building in the hamlet of Ascott near Wing in Buckinghamshire, England. It is set in a 32-acre / 13 hectare estate. Ascott House was originally a farm house, built in the reign of James I and known as "Ascott Hall". In 1873 it was acquired by Baron Mayer de Rothschild (of the neighbouring Mentmore Towers estate). The Rothschild family had begun to acquire vast tracts of land in Buckinghamshire earlier in the century, on which they built a series of large mansions from 1852 onwards. Baron Mayer gave the house at Ascott to his nephew Leopold de Rothschild, who transformed it over the following decades into the substantial yet informal country house that it is today.

The Grand Junction Canal is a canal in England from Braunston in Northamptonshire to the River Thames at Brentford, with a number of branches. The mainline was built between 1793 and 1805, to improve the route from the Midlands to London, by-passing the upper reaches of the River Thames near Oxford, thus shortening the journey. In 1927 the canal was bought by the Regent's Canal Company and, since 1 January 1929, has formed the southern half of the Grand Union Main Line from London to Birmingham. The canal is now much used by leisure traffic. Isambard Kingdom Brunel's last major undertaking was the compact Three Bridges, London, on the canal. Work began in 1856, and was completed in 1859. The three bridges are an overlapping arrangement allowing the routes of the Grand Junction Canal, Great Western and Brentford Railway, and Windmill Lane to cross.

Ascott is a hamlet and country house in the parish of Wing, Buckinghamshire, England. The hamlet lies completely within the boundary of the Ascott Estate; it is home to many of the estate and house staff. Prior to the Norman Conquest there was an abbey at Ascott, that had been given by a royal to a Benedictine convent in Angiers. In 1415 however, the same year as the Battle of Agincourt, the convent was seized by the English church because it belonged to the French and awarded to the Convent of St Mary du Pre, near St Albans. In the early 16th century the abbey (along with the manor of Wing) was seized by the Crown and given to Cardinal Wolsey, however not long after it was seized once again in the Dissolution of the Monasteries and given to Robert Dormer. In 1554 William Dormer entertained Princess Elizabeth at the house, when she was on the road to London under arrest as a Protestant because her sister Mary had just taken the throne. Anne of Denmark visited in 1612, and James VI and I was entertained at Ascott by Anne, Lady Dormer, in 1620.The former abbey, now a house, once featured additions that were attributed to Inigo Jones. The house fell into decay following the death without heirs of Charles Dormer, 2nd Earl of Carnarvon in 1709. In 1727 the house and estate were broken up, the deer sold and all the timber cut down and sold off. In the late 19th century members of the Rothschild banking family began to acquire estates in the area, including Ascott. In 1873 a farm house in the parish known as Ascott Hall was bought by Baron Mayer de Rothschild he gave it to his nephew Leopold de Rothschild who employed the architect George Devey to enlarge the property into a substantial country house. Today this is the National Trust property known as Ascott House or sometimes known more simply as just "Ascott".