TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED - behind the scenes in Milton Keynes |
For a moment I think we’ve been caught in a time slip. In the blink of an eye we’ve gone from the ultra-modern land of 900 roundabouts that is Milton Keynes to an ethereally peaceful village scene, surrounded by thatched cottages with the proverbial roses around the door. This is Middleton, one of the American-style ‘grids’ of MK – as everyone calls it – and home to the chocolate-box-pretty hamlet that gave MK its’ name. Moments later and we’re back in the car navigating the pattern of Hs (horizontal ways) and Vs (vertical streets) that are supposed to take motorists across town in under 10 minutes. We’re heading for another tiny time capsule at Fenny Lock, with its swing bridge, on the Grand Union Canal. Beside the Red Lion pub, with a message board outside for boats, is another row of quaint cottages with owners enjoying the sunshine in their flower-filled gardens. The postman stops for a chat as he hands the letters over the picket fences, as if in a scene from days gone by. It’s so hard to believe that, just a few steps away, the ‘real’ MK, the last, the largest and the most successful of the new towns, is encroaching on this idyll. We get even more caught up in this curious time warp phenomenon at Wolverton, one of the three towns absorbed with 13 villages to make up MK. A Victorian farmstead on what counts for a hill in these parts is home to Milton Keynes Museum. It’s run by the most enthusiastic band of volunteers you could ever wish to meet, all eager to preserve the local history. In what was the cowshed is an entire street of shop frontages which have come from the old villages. There’s even the front of the Co-op department store from nearby Newport Pagnell. In a huge new shed there’s two of the world’s biggests; the largest steam tramcar, a magnificent polished beast which we’re allowed to board and the world’s biggest mobile phone, a bright yellow BT demo vehicle with a huge handset on its’ roof. As if to further enhance the weird sensation I’m getting of a parallel universe, in the corner I spot a canvas-roofed gypsy caravan. It’s been left exactly as it was in 1994 when the couple and their three-year-old who had been living in it for years decided local authority housing would be rather more comfortable for the pregnant mother. It’s cosy, but cramped, inside. What is little more than a cubby hole still has a ‘Jessica’s Room’ plaque above it. |
Medieval Outside there’s a paddock where we meet another Jessie. This is the Shire horse who’s a celebrity in nearby Cosgrove, where she has been hauling a recycling scheme cart around the streets for 16 years. Later, a road through an industrial estate leads us to the site of the medieval monastery at Bradwell Abbey. As we admire wall paintings in the 14th century pilgrim chapel of St Mary we remind ourselves that, only a few minutes away, is the futuristic Xscape building, inside which people sky-dive. On the way to Bletchley Park – home of the World War II Enigma code-breakers – we stop for a stroll around the lake at Caldecotte. Canoeists whip across the water. On the far shore is a windmill, albeit a replica one, creating the illusion that we’re in the middle of the countryside. This is exactly what the planners wanted. MK has, so I’m told, 26 per cent green space, enough trees to classify it as a forest, three ancient woodlands with deer and badgers and more miles of waterfront than Jersey around its’ many lakes and the canal.
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Colossus If MK is a bit of an enigma then where we’re headed is exactly that. Bletchley Park was once so hush-hush that even husbands and wives who had worked here before they married did not tell each other about it until decades later. Now a trail of wartime huts around the grounds of a lovely red-brick mansion offers a gripping insight in to what was the top-secret world of the code-breakers. Potential recruits were, apparently, given The Times crossword. If they could do it in five minutes then they got the job. Here we find a rebuilt Bombe, which, in 1941, would have decrypted Enigma messages using the most advanced electro-mechanical technology then available. To break an Enigma cipher the Bombe had to discover the key from 158 million, million, million possibilities. Incredibly, the Bombe helped reduce this to ‘only’ one million. But it’s Colossus, the world’s first semi-programmable electronic computer, which is drawing the most attention. That is, except for my young daughter. She is far more interested in the Pigeons At War story about the messenger birds parachuted in to occupied territory. I’m enthralled by the From Bletchley With Love display and its’ tales of spies and double agents and the wartime exploits of James Bond creator Ian Fleming. |
Canaletto Next day, inside Woburn Abbey – the home of the Dukes of Bedford for nearly 400 years – it is 21 of Canaletto’s glorious Venetian views that have me awestruck. In other rooms are masterpieces by Cuyp, Gainsborough, Reynolds and Van Dyck. In the vaults below are glass cases filled with magnificent collections of gold, silver, glass and porcelain. In the Abbey Gardens, woodland glades are filled with modern sculpture and the ponds teem with enormous carp. Nine different species of deer roam freely in the 3000 acre parkland. Again, we’re only 10 minutes from Milton Keynes, but it feels like we’re in another era.
On our journey home, I’m mindful of what friends said when they heard we were coming to Milton Keynes; “the land of the concrete cows and roundabouts.” Yes, we did catch a glimpse of the rather comical cows which were created for an art project. We were on our way past them to see the Bancroft Roman Villa, in a green corridor between housing estates, its’ outline still clearly visible, its’ mosaic pavement on display in the shopping centre. Milton Keynes is certainly an enigma. I’m glad that we managed to look beyond its’ malls and multiplexes and decipher some of its’ ‘secrets’. |
All photos © Robin Weaver WHAT ELSE TO SEE AND DO * Most people know Newport Pagnell, on the edge of MK, for its’ motorway services, but it is well worth a short detour. Take a town heritage walking trail alongside the river and over the beautiful Tickford Bridge, the oldest cast-iron bridge in the world still carrying traffic. The bridge celebrated its bicentenary this year (2010). Dine at the characterful coaching inn, the 15th century The Swan Revived. www.swanrevived.co.uk * At Woburn Safari Park visitors can take two safaris; in their vehicle through the 32 acre lion park and a 19 acre African forest with rare antelope and monkeys and on foot through a house of squirrel monkeys and an ‘Australian’ area with wallabies. The most popular is a walk through a land of lemurs where the cheeky creatures jumped across us, brushing our heads. www.discoverwoburn.co.uk * Stony Stratford is a charming market town where the expression ‘cock and bull story’ originated from the travellers and highwaymen who visited the local coaching inns, The Cock and The Bull, which are still popular today. * Milton Keynes Gallery has changing exhibitions of contemporary international art (free). www.mk-g.org * The landmark Xscape building houses indoor skiing and snowboarding, sky-diving, rock-climbing, cinema, clubs, bars and restaurants. www.xscape.co.uk * Olney, well known for its pancake race, is a pleasant market town where John Newton, the slave-trade reformer who wrote Amazing Grace lived. It’s linked to the village of Weston Underwood by a pretty stretch of the Ouse valley and a favourite walk of the poet William Cowper. * Follow an art trail through Campbell Park and around Willen Lake to see some weird and wonderful sculptures. * At Willen Lake you can try cable waterskiing or wakeboarding, without the need for a boat. www.whitecap.co.uk * Cycle around MK on a variety of Heritage Trails or along its 177 miles of cycle paths. www.milton-keynes.gov.uk/cycling WHERE TO STAY * We stayed at Best Western Moore Place Hotel, an elegant Georgian manor house in the peaceful village of Aspley Guise on the edge of MK. It’s half a mile from M1 junction 13, close to Bletchley and Woburn and a short drive to central MK. www.mooreplace.co.uk WHERE TO EAT * Volunteer Diane Roder spends her days at The Granary tea rooms at Milton Keynes Museum baking the most wonderful cakes, tray bakes, buns and other goodies to tempt visitors. www.mkmuseum.org.uk FOR MORE INFORMATION * www.destinationmiltonkeynes.co.uk * The chapel at Bradwell Abbey is open on certain dates. Call 01908 227229 Publications Yorkshire Post Enigma Variations |
This was where, at full throttle, 10,000 people worked on a shift system to crack Germany’s coded communications. Local people were so completely in the dark about what went on here that some even thought that it was a lunatic asylum.
