National Museum of Computing, Bletchley

A true geek heaven is the National Museum of Computing in Bletchley which has a remarkable collection of computers ranging from the earliest electronic machines to fairly recent microcomputers. The highlight though is the ICL mainframe room full of "old iron".

Mainframes that filled rooms used to run the world, though have less power than the average smart phone these days. Of course thats not the whole story, mainframes were designed to munch through tens of thousands of records and transactions. You wouldn't really want to use an iPhone to calculate and print payroll for a few hundred thousand employees overnight!

War memorial, Woburn Sands

Woburn Sands (until Victorian times known as Hogsty End) is on the Buckinghamshire-Bedfordshire border. This memorial was erected for the inhabitants of Woburn Sands and Aspley Heath who died in the First World War.

Haddenham

Haddenham is a Buckinghamshire village close to the Oxfordshire border and especially the village of Thame which is about three kilometres away. The village is recorded in the Domesday Book as Hedreham and may have been founded by members of the Anglo-Saxon Hadding tribe from Haddenham, Cambridgeshire.

For a few years (1294-1301) Haddenham had a charter to be a market town but lost it due to the proximity of Thame which objected to the competition. Agriculture was the main occupation of  Haddenham's inhabitants, the village was known for duck and poultry breeding [1] and also had a brick works.

The village has a rather unusual plan, stretching over one and half kilometres. The village was devastated by two fires in the eighteenth century which destroyed a large number of buildings, especially near the church [2].

The parish church, situated on the green, is dedicated to St. Mary dates back to before the thirteenth century and maybe even has remnants from Saxon times. The chancel is thirteenth centurieswith additions in later centuries. The church was rebuilt in Victorian times [3].

[1] "Parishes: Haddenham." A History of the County of Buckingham: Volume 2. Ed. William Page. London: Victoria County History, 1908. 281-286. British History Online. Web. 16 February 2019. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/bucks/vol2/pp281-286.
[2]" Haddenham." An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Buckinghamshire, Volume 1, South. London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1912. 176-184. British History Online. Web. 16 February 2019. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/rchme/bucks/vol1/pp176-184.
[3] Nikolaus Pevsner, Buckinghamshire (Penguin, 1960) p. 149

The Dyke, High Wycombe

The Dyke is an elongated artificial lake in High Wycombe created by the flooding of an old road within the former grounds of the Wycombe Abbey School. The Dyke and a wooded area next to it was donated to the Chepping Wycombe Corporation (later the council) by the Marquis of Lincolnshire in 1923. The Dyke is fed by streams and has a separate watercourse to the adjacent river Wye. 

Church of St Dunstan, Monks Risborough

The Church of St Dunstan is the parish church of Monks Risborough. The church dates mostly from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries though was built on the site of an earlier church [1]. The church was restored in the 1860s.

The church, built mainly from flint, has a nave with North and South aisles, a chancel, a transept to the North (which may be the oldest part of the church) and a square tower. The church has a twelfth century Norman font of the Aylesbury type and may be from the original church.

As for Saint Dunstan he was a tenth century monk and abbott who rose to become Archbishop of Canerbury. He was canonised in 1029AD.

[1] "Parishes: Monks Risborough." A History of the County of Buckingham: Volume 2. Ed. William Page. London: Victoria County History, 1908. 256-260. British History Online. Web. 7 February 2019. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/bucks/vol2/pp256-260.