Baku (1): City of Fire: Part 1 of From The Caspian to the Black Sea

A Burning Hill in the Absheron Peninsula and a Cold Beer in Boulevard Park

Arriving in Baku

Azerbaijan

Baku

Arriving before dawn at Baku’s Heydǝr Əliyev airport, we taxied past the new terminal, a glittering crystal palace studded with unexpected angles and slopes like a melting snowflake, and disembarked at the ‘Old’ Terminal, completed in 1999. Baku wants you to know it is a city on the move.

We were met by Yassim and drove into town along Heydǝr Əliyev Avenue, which offered more of the same. Some buildings, like the 65,000-seater football stadium* (and I have no idea how they intend to fill it) are under construction, while others like the magnificent Heydǝr Əliyev Centre (designed without a single straight line by Dame Zaha Hadid**) are complete.

The Heydǝr Əliyev Centre, Baku 

Anyone reading this far with even the slightest concentration will have noticed that the name ‘Heydǝr Əliyev’ appears three times in the first two paragraphs, and that it involves a strange letter - twice.

The new National Stadium, Baku

Taking the second issue first: Azerbaijani (or Azeri) is similar to Turkish (Togrul, our multilingual driver claimed ‘all our grammar and 70% of our vocabulary is Turkish’). It is spoken by 9 million people in Azerbaijan, 15 million in northern Iran and several million more over the border in Russia. Traditionally written in Arabic script, as it still is in Iran, Azeri, like Turkish, changed to a modified Latin script in the 1920s. In 1939 Stalin, wishing to break Azeri links with Turkey, decreed that the language should be written in Cyrillic. It still is in Russia, but Azerbaijan reverted to Latin after independence in 1991. As with Turkish, a host of accents are used to modify pronunciation, but they have one letter all of their own. Ə is the commonest letter in Azeri and, according to the Lonely Planet, is pronounced like the a in 'apple' to distinguish it from dotless ı, which is the a in 'ago'. This may be very important, but I have tried several times, and I think I pronounce them the same.

And Heydǝr Əliyev? Once the leader of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic he later became effectively vice-president of the USSR. After falling out with Mikhail Gorbachev he returned to provincial Azerbaijan and re-invented himself as a moderate nationalist just in time to step into the turmoil which followed independence. In 1993 he became the third President of independent Azerbaijan. Neither of his predecessors had lasted long but Heydǝr Əliyev was Presdent until his death in 2003, at which point his son Ilham, the current president, took over. Elections are held regularly, their conduct being described by international observers as ‘well below the expected standard.’

Heydǝr Əliyev, 3rd President of Azerbaijan

So we were in a land with a dead president whose name – and photograph – were ubiquitous. He had been succeeded by his son and we were driving on largely empty roads past monumental architecture. Were we back in North Korea?

We were taken to a small hotel in a street shaded by old and dusty plane trees. Yassim departed, saying he would return after lunch for our tour of the Absheron Peninsula.

Our hotel in a street shaded by old and dusty plane trees, Baku

After an overnight flight, politics felt less important than a cup of tea, a shower and a nap. Our room was modest but clean, and had all the expected offices - though a kettle without teabag or cups would be of limited use to less well-prepared travellers.

Baku, an Exploratory Stroll

Later, partly refreshed, we took a stroll. Venturing out on our own was a definite no-no in North Korea, but it seemed acceptable here. Also unlike North Korea we had a pocketful of local currency – Yassim’s first act had been to guide us to the airport ATM (1 Manat is worth roughly 75p).

A block away we found Heydǝr Əliyev Park. His statue waved to us, but unlike those of Kim Il Sun and Kim Jong Il we were not required to bow. The other parallels started to fade. Now the sun was up there was ample traffic, drivers leaning on their horns as soon as the lights changed. There were people, too, either walking with purpose, like they had a job to do, or lazing on the shady park benches; in other words behaving normally, like North Koreans don't.

Lynne and Heydǝr Əliyev, Heydǝr Əliyev Park, Baku

Free to wander, we passed the Heydǝr Əliyev Opera House and found ourselves in Summer Park with its fountains and bonzai trees. It was already hot, but there was a pleasant breeze and the splashing fountains added their cooling effect. Occasionally a gust of wind through the spray produced what is best described as drizzle, though it was pleasant in a way drizzle never is. There were businesses, signs and advertisements, and a clutch of smart looking cafés and restaurants.

Summer Park fountains, Baku

The buildings, unlike those in North Korea, were on a human scale and many looked well designed, even elegant. Most of the old Soviet blocks, we later learned, have either been demolished or refaced with local limestone – I hope as much care was spent on improving the insides, where the people actually live. Baku, it became increasingly obvious, is experiencing a boom and signs of new affluence were everywhere. The ordinary people, too, appear to be sharing in the growing wealth - which is not to say it is evenly distributed or that corruption is not a serious problem.

Soviet blocks in new limestone cladding, Baku

Lunch in Summer Park, Baku

After retreating to our hotel for more sleep we returned to Summer Park for lunch. The restaurants seemed to be open, but were completely empty. We sat and watched for a while and eventually two would be lunchers appeared and chose a restaurant. We followed them in, like sheep.

Bonzai and cafés, Summer Park, Baku

The menu was in Azeri and Russian. We were not particularly hungry and identifying the salads was straightforward enough. Lynne’s choice was dictated by a desire to discover the meaning of the oft recurring word gobelek (mushrooms, apparently). I decided ‘Sezar’ meant Caesar salad but instead selected something which sounded like Mongol Salad and involved an ingredient I thought might be ‘aubergine’ (it was). We have visited Mongolia, and to find a nation less inclined to eat salad you would need to look beyond the Arctic Circle. The salads were small, inexpensive and wholesome, though it probably helps not to have a long list of dislikes when navigating a menu by guesswork. They offered a choice of five beers, though I was slow to spot that all were non-alcoholic.

The Absheron Peninsula

Yassim arrived as arranged and we set off for the Absheron Peninsula, a hook of land jutting 30km into the Caspian Sea just north of the city. Absheron is not a beautiful place, it is an arid plain randomly dotted with dwellings and industry. If you want to buy a truck load of limestone blocks, or a gate for your estate, then Absheron is the place to go.

Azerbaijan means 'land of fire' and it was in Absheron that it earned that name. Oil and natural gas bubble to the surface here and the resulting natural fires have been of great significance to Zoroastrians since antiquity. The modern world finds oil and gas important for different reasons. The deposits in Absheron were easily exploited and in 1905 half the world’s oil came from the peninsula and Baku was experiencing its first boom. The deposits are now largely exhausted but the land is still covered in derricks and nodding donkeys, pumping the last drops from several thousand metres below.

Derricks and nodding donkeys, Absheron

Today, exploration is off-shore where vast gas reserves lurk beneath the Caspian Sea. The recently completed pipeline through Georgia to the Black Sea coast in Turkey is of great strategic importance, being the only major European supply route not involving Russia. The gas is responsible for Baku’s second, current, boom.

In a simpler age spontaneous fires were interpreted as the underground activities of the gods. Zoroastrianism grew from this basis and the area was crowded with fire temples until the medieval expansion of Islam doused the Zoroastrians ardour.

Ateşgah Mǝbǝdi Fire Temple, Absheron Peninsula

Large scale extraction of the oil and gas finally finished off the fire temples. 18th century Ateşgah Mǝbǝdi was the last to be built and is the sole survivor.It has been heavily restored but remains atmospheric though even here the fire is no longer spontaneous, but is artificially fuelled. Around the walls are cells where the pilgrims stayed, most equipped with their own fire pits, so they could pray and meditate in the presence of God. They travelled from the Zoroastrian communities in Iran and India, but they now no longer visit, and those communities are in decline. Only 25,000 Zoroastrian remain in Iran and there are a similar number of Parsees in India – descendants of Zoroastrian Persians who migrated there a thousand years ago.

Ateşgah Mǝbǝdi, Absheron

Yanar Dag (Fire Mountain), Absheron Peninsula

A fifteen minute drive took us to Yanar Dag, literally ‘Fire Mountain’. 'Mountain' is an overstatement. Rising less than twenty metres above the plain it is barely a hill, but the ‘Knoll of Fire’ lacks the right ring. Along the base, where the land folds upwards, are a series of fissures where methane, forced up under pressure, burns in a line of flames. Such sights were once commonplace but this is the only spontaneous fire left. Probably first ignited by lightening, it has been burning longer than records have been kept, impervious to rain or snow - not that the area (which is classified as semi-desert) has a great deal of either. It is a weird and wonderful sight, and if you stand as close as Lynne is in the picture, quite a hot one, too.

Yanar Dag, Absheron

We returned to Baku and were dropped off near the pedestrian streets below the Old City which lies on a hill at the southern end of the bay. Yassim showed us to a bookshop to buy a city map (hotels give them away everywhere else, but not here) and then left us to our own devices.

The Caspian Sea - The Journey Starts

We were beginning a journey from the Caspian to the Black Sea, so we walked to the water’s edge to establish our starting point. There is no beach at Baku - deep water laps against the rocks alongside the promenade - so we took it in turns to stand on the rocks and stick in a hand.

Dissolving my hand in the polluted Caspian Sea

Whether the Caspian is a sea or the world’s largest lake (at least, by area) is a moot point. Being below sea level the Caspian has no outflow - water is lost only by evaporation – and is, hence, saline. When Alexander the Great's army reached here in the fourth century BC they tasted the waters and decided it was part of the great ocean surrounding the world. Its salinity is, I read, only a third that of the oceans, but the scummy slime on the rocks and the unpleasant odours dissuaded me testing this myself. Inserting a hand felt brave enough, putting the water to my lips seemed suicidal. There were, though, plenty of fish, 10 centimetres long and resembling miniature versions of the Caspian’s best known fish and producer of its best known product, the increasingly rare caviar. Whether they were sturgeon or not I have no idea. Ten metres out a shoal were engaged in a feeding frenzy, the surface of the water a mass of silvery bodies. A local man lobbed a stone into their midst and several thousand fish simultaneously leapt into the air. Then the shoal disappeared.

Boulevard Park, Baku

A park runs along by the shore, a green and shady place boasting plants from all over the world. It was built by the oil barons of the first boom and in this dry climate much watering is required. Baku's soil is an infertile mixture of sand and clay, so the builders even had to import the topsoil.

Lynne and a fountain in the park beside the Caspian Sea, Baku

After seventy years of official atheism as part of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijan now acknowledges that ninety per cent of its population are Muslims. The constitution, though, remains secular and Islamic practices are not rigidly followed. Few women wear headscarves, the pop videos shown in almost every café display little modesty and we did not hear any calls to prayer in Baku. On the other hand, we had been reduced to drinking non-alcoholic beer at lunchtime.

We sat outside a café beside the park in the belief that a cold, wet beer would perfectly compliment the hot, dry afternoon. Alcohol is in no way banned, and the Tuborg we were served hit the spot nicely. Many Azeris do not drink - more because it is not part of their culture than out of religious prohibition – but, despite our lunchtime experience, beer is widely available. Azerbaijan also grows wine - though none came our way – and vodka is available in every small grocers (well they were part of the Soviet Union!)

Essential rehydration beside the Caspian Sea, Baku

Our thirst quenched, we continued our long walk, though Lynne fell asleep as soon as we reached the hotel.

Continuing our walk back to the hotel, Baku

Pizza and Pide in Baku

Later we went out to eat. After much wandering and deliberation we ended up in a basic café close to the hotel. Lynne was happy with a pizza and I chose a pide. Not knowing quite what it was and faced with a selection of five different pide I pointed at the first on the list. The café owner had a long think before scraping the word 'beef' from the recesses of his memory. It turned out to be very like a pizza but square and based on the local flat bread with a lot of melted cheese but little tomato sauce. With it we had a cup of tea, which seemed a better idea than the fizzy sweet drinks which were the only alternative. It turned out to be such a good idea we had a second.

Back at the hotel we were both snoring by nine - we had a sleep deficit to deal with.

* The current National Stadium is named after Tofiq Bahramov, once general secretary of the Azerbaijan Football Association but better known in England as The Soviet Linesman (or more often, if erroneously, The Russian Linesman), the man who awarded Geoff Hurst's dodgy second goal in the 1966 World Cup Final

** Zaha Hadid, a British -Iraqi architect, also designed the aquacentre for the London Olympics among much else [Died 31/03/2015]

From the Caspian to the Black Sea

Part 1: Baku (1) City of Fire

Part 2: The Qobustan Petroglyphs and the Old City
Part 3: Baku to Şǝki (or Sheki)
Part 4: Sheki (or Şǝki)
Part 5: Into Georgia: Wine Tasting in Kakheti
Part 6: Telavi to Tbilisi via Sighnaghi
Interlude: Tasting Georgian Wine
Part 7: Tbilisi
Part 8: Up the Georgian Military Highway

 Part 9: Stepantsminda (Kazbegi) and Tsminda Sameba
Part 10: Uplistsikhe and Gori, Cave Dwellings and Stalin
Part 11: Kutaisi, Zugdidi and the Inguri Valley
Part 12: Mestia: Capital of the Upper Svaneti
Part 13: Ushguli: To the Ends of the Earth
Part 14: South to Adjara
Part 15 Batumi, Capital of Ajara

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Istanbul (4) Taksim Square and the Galata Tower

 

Ypres, Tyne Cot and the Menin Gate

How World War 1 Started

The First World War started a hundred years ago today, or three days ago, or four, or last week, depending on your point of view. On the 28th of June 1914, Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip gave up on his attempt to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and went into a bakery (now a museum) beside Sarajevo’s Latin Bridge. When he came out he found himself standing beside Franz Ferdinand’s stalled car. It was an opportunity too good to miss.

The Latin Bridge and assassination site, Sarajevo, May 2012

A month later, to the day, Austria declared war on Serbia, the next day Russia mobilised, followed by Germany on the 30th of July and France on the 1st of August. On the 4th of August Great Britain declared war on Germany, so we are commemorating today as the anniversary of the start of the Great War, partly out of British bias, and partly because on that date all the major players in the disasters of the next four years had placed their pieces on the board.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire was important at the time, and the murder of the heir to the throne was a major event, but the death of 9 million combatants and about the same number of civilians seems a serious over-reaction. The truth was that Europe was spoiling for a fight and everybody was up for it. Across the continent declarations of war were greeted with celebrations in the streets.

From ‘England to her Sons’

Sons of mine, I hear you thrilling
To the trumpet call of war;
Gird ye then, I give you freely
As I gave your sires before,
All the noblest of the children I in love and anguish bore.

‘England to her Sons’ was written by W. N. Hodgson in August 1914. He was killed in July 1916 on the first day of the Battle of the Somme.

Tyne Cot Cemetery, Passchendaele

War is a failure of diplomacy. It is also a business, and one that specialises in the bulk production of corpses. Tyne Cot Cemetery stands as an antidote to Hodgson's jingoism. It lies on a hillside a few miles outside the Belgian town we usually call by its French name of Ypres, though the Flemish speaking locals call it Ieper. The British troops called it Wipers.

Tyne Cot Cemetery, Passchendaele

It is the largest Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery of this, or any other, war. 11,954 soldiers are buried here and on 8,367 of the headstones the only words are

A Soldier of the Great War,
Known unto God.

On the memorial wall are the names of 34,959 more who have no known grave. Some may be in the anonymous graves but many more simply disappeared into the muddy morass that this gently sloping hillside became.

Tyne Cot Cemetery with the memorial wall at rear

The grave of Second Lieutenant Arthur Conway Young bears the words

Sacrificed to the fallacy

That war can end war.

Rudyard Kipling wrote:

If any question why we died,

Tell them, because our fathers lied.

Like much of Kipling's work it is deceptively simple. He was a fervent supporter of the war though a trenchant critic of the way it was fought. His only son, John, was killed at the Battle of Loos in 1915. John Kipling had been rejected first by the Royal Navy and then by the Army because of his extreme short-sightedness, but his father pulled strings to gain him a commission in the Irish Guards. ‘Our fathers lied’ can be interpreted in a broad sense, but for Kipling it had a personal meaning, too, a meaning he had to live with until his own death in 1936.

Just above Tyne Cot, on the top of the ridge, is the village of Passchendaele. It is not a huge ridge; you can drive from bottom to top without changing gear, though no doubt it looked a lot bigger to those slogging up it in knee deep mud through barbed wire entanglements into a hail of machine gun bullets.

There is little remarkable about the village of Passchendaele except that it still exists. It is perhaps a measure of the futility of WW1 that there were not one but two battles of Passchendaele, both actions within the five month long Third Battle of Ypres - and there were five of them.

The low ridge stretches south for several miles before curving west round to Messines, part encircling Ypres and giving fine views over the town - which is why it was so important.

Ypres

It was at Ypres that the British stopped the German advance in October 1914 and they held the town for the rest of the war, despite the Germans occupying the high ground on three sides, putting Ypres near the tip of a dangerous salient. The subsequent Battles of Ypres (1915, 1917 and two in 1918) involved the Germans trying to take the town, or the British attempting to break out.

Grote Markt, Ypres

Today it is a pleasant little town with some 30,000 inhabitants, much the same as in 1914. The central Grote Markt is dominated by the magnificent bulk of the thirteenth century Cloth Hall just as it was in 1914, though it is not quite the same Cloth Hall - how could it be?

The Cloth Hall, Ypres, Feb 2008

The painstaking business of putting the bits back together started in 1933, was interrupted by the second bout of unpleasantness and completed in 1967. It now houses an exhibition/museum called 'In Flanders Field'. It is long on the horrors of war and short on the glory of victory (how different to North Korea’s Fatherland Liberation War Museum!) and should be a compulsory part of any visit to Ypres

Australian artillerymen outside the Cloth Hall, Ypres, Sept 1919
Borrowed, with thanks, from Australians on the Western Front 1914-18

The Menin Gate, Ypres

A short walk from the Grote Markt is the Menin Gate. The memorial, designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield, was unveiled in 1927, the marble walls bearing the names of 54,896 British and Commonwealth servicemen who perished in the Ypres salient and have no known graves.

At 8pm every day since 1927 buglers of the Ypres Fire Brigade have played the Last Post at the Menin Gate. (or, after the German invasion in 1940 at the Brookwood Military Cemetery in Surrey, returning to the Menin Gate on the day Ypres was liberated in 1944). I have attended on three occasions, on a warm summer evening and on crisp February nights. Anyone who leaves without a lump in their throat does not understand what they have witnessed.

The Last Post at the Menin Gate, Ypres, Feb 2008

There are however, problems with the Menin Gate. Firstly it was too small for its purpose. 90,000 soldiers have no known graves, but the gate has space for less than 60,000, which is why those who died after the 15th of August 1917 are commemorated on the wall of Tyne Cot Cemetery.

Names on the Menin Gate, Ypres

Secondly, although the gate faces towards the front line, they did not use it - it was too exposed to artillery fire, and thirdly although the design had some critical success, it was not universally loved. Siegfried Sassoon, a poet and professional soldier who was decorated for bravery in the war that so disillusioned him wrote:

On Passing the New Menin Gate.

Who will remember, passing through this Gate,
The unheroic dead who fed the guns?
Who shall absolve the foulness of their fate,-
Those doomed,conscripted, unvictorious ones?
Crudely renewed, the Salient holds its own.
Paid are its dim defenders by this pomp;
Paid, with a pile of peace-complacent stone,
The armies who endured that sullen swamp.
Here was the world's worst wound. And here with pride
'Their name liveth for ever', the Gateway claims.
Was ever an immolation so belied
As these intolerably nameless names?
Well might the Dead who struggled in the slime
Rise and deride this sepulchre of crime.

Vauban and the Ramparts Cemetery

Sir Reginald Blomfield’s gate replaced Ypres’ original Menin Gate, part of the fortifications designed by Vauban in the late 17th century. Vauban was an innovative military architect but his ramparts and moat, though state of the art for their time, were irrelevant when the First World War arrived.

Vauban's rampart and moat, Ypres

Much of Ypres still lies within these defences and although they are no longer complete you can walk half way round the town on the ramparts. It is a pleasant stroll, but like everywhere else on the front line that stretched from the channel to the borders of Switzerland, you cannot go far without meeting a military cemetery. The Ramparts (Lille Gate) Cemetery is small, containing the graves of 128 men, 127 of them British and the other unidentified and unidentifiable.

Ramparts Cemetery, Ypres

Kipling, Sassoon, Owen and 'The Old Lie'

Rudyard Kipling became the literary advisor to the War Graves Commission. He suggested the biblical ‘Their name liveth for evermore’ which adorns the Stone of Remembrance that stands in every military cemetery and so upset Siegfried Sassoon. He also coined the phrases ‘Known unto God’ for the graves of unidentified soldiers (the French use the uncompromising ‘Inconnu’) and ‘The Glorious Dead’ which appears on either end of the cenotaph in London. Kipling was not there, though, and Sassoon was. I would like to think the human race has matured and no longer finds glory in war, but that is probably wishful thinking. There was precious little glory in the events around the Ypres salient.

The 90,000 men commemorated at the Menin Gate and at Tyne Cot represent a quarter of 400,000 Commonwealth servicemen who died holding the Ypres salient. They may have been heroes, but they were also victims. Nor should we forget the similar number of Germans who died here, nor the several thousand French and Belgian soldiers.

The Kipling couplet quoted earlier may have had personal connotations, but hints at wider lies told by one generation to the next. Wilfred Owen’s Dulce et Decorum Est about a gas attack does not go in for subtle hints. It may be one of the best known poems in the English language, but I make no apology for including the last verse here.

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, -
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The Old Lie: Dulce et Decorum Est
Pro patria Mori.

Dulce et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori (it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country) is the title of one of the Odes of Horace first published in 23BC. It was a lie then, it is a lie now.

American readers might already know that the same lie adorns the Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

WW1 Centenary Posts

Ypres, Tyne Cot and the Menin Gate (1914/2014)
The Somme, One Hundred Years Ago Today (1916/2016)
The Eleventh hour of the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Month (1918/2018)

Buckingham and Stowe

A Trip to Buckingham Waylaid by the Glorious Insanity that is Stowe

To Buckingham

Buckinghamshire

My parents moved to Buckinghamshire when I was five and stayed there fifty years, so it might seem surprising to those who do not know the county that I had never been to Buckingham. Buckinghamshire is long and thin and we lived in the south, a stone's throw from what was then Middlesex and is now Greater London, while Buckingham is in the far north, and there was just no reason to go there; it is not on the way to anywhere, it lost the title of 'county town' to Aylesbury in the eighteenth century and with 12,000 inhabitants it is hardly a major centre of population.

By chance our daughter lives near Aylesbury (a town of little charm where even the duckling connection is only historic) so whilst cat sitting we decided now was the time to visit Buckingham - it was only twenty miles away.

Our arrival was inauspicious, a new suburb under construction south of the town will apparently require an inordinate number of roundabouts and the road works were tedious. Then there was a deviation in the town centre where a road was closed for repairs.

Stowe

Whether Stowe is part of Buckingham is a moot point - the approach road starts within the town but the long straight drive quickly reaches parkland and heads straight for a Corinthian Arch. Disappointingly the road swings right instead of passing beneath it.

The approach to Stowe's Corinthian Arch

The New Inn

In the eighteenth century fashionable people travelled the country to see grand gardens and Stowe, as the National Trust slogan runs, is ‘Gardening on a Grand Scale’. Viscount Cobham was proud of his great estate and wanted to show it off, so in 1717 he built the New Inn to accommodate visitors. Fashions change and the New Inn closed in 1851, but it has recently been restored and now looks as it might have done in its heyday.

Lynne at the New Inn, Stowe

The Corinthian Arch

Beyond the modern reception area, we joined the path behind the Corinthian Arch, and walked down Bell Gate Drive to the estate.

The Corinthian Arch, Stowe

The arch is one of my collection of pre-1900 Triumphal Arches. Click here for that post.

Stowe and the Ups and Down of the Temple Family

From the (not noticeably octagonal) Octagon Lake there is a magnificent view down over the water and up across the sward to Stowe House. This is a garden of landscapes rather than flowers, and over three generations the greatest landscape gardeners of the age, including Capability Brown, spared neither expense nor effort in transforming natural countryside into a fake natural countryside matching the fashions of the day.

Lynne, the Octagon Lake and Stowe House

The Temple family made their money from sheep farming. In 1571 Peter Temple leased the Stowe estate and by 1584 his son could afford to buy both the estate and manor house. The Temples became baronets and grew wealthier and in 1683 Sir Richard Temple started to build the current Stowe House. Like the garden it was worked on over several generations by the greatest architects of the day, including Sir John Vanbrugh and Robert Adam.

His son, also called Richard, was a soldier and politician. He became Viscount Cobham and married into even more wealth. Lord Cobham created the garden, though work continued for a generation or two after him. He was the richest man in England, richer than the king, so cost was no obstacle.

The lakes and walkways are populated by shrines, monuments and temples in classical style. Between the Octagon and Eleven Acre Lakes a cascade is crossed by a bridge bearing an artificial ruin. Ruination can result from malice or neglect and a well preserved ruin, like a Cambodian temple (neglect) or Glastonbury Abbey (malice), is always of interest, but I dislike purpose built ruins. Two have previously appeared in this blog; the chocolate teapot that is Mow Cop and the small temple on the Sandon Estate which is undoubtedly regarded as an aesthetic highlight by the grazing sheep. To me, these say 'more money than sense' and are grounds for questioning the taste of the builder.

The Ruin on the Cascade, Stowe

On a circuitous route to the house we passed the rotunda which houses a copy of the Medici Venus. Much of the garden involves fakery and copies, though occasionally it rises to the heights of 'derivative'.

The Rotunda, Stowe

For two generations the owners failed to produce heirs and the estate passed from uncle to nephew. This, and the family’s tendency to enrich itself by marrying heiresses and collecting their money, titles and names led, in the mid nineteenth century, to Stowe being owned by Richard Plantagenet Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, 2nd Duke of Chandos and Buckingham. While marrying into wealth and climbing the ranks of the peerage from Baron to Viscount, then Earl and finally Duke, they spent as though money were infinite and earned a reputation for arrogance which was unhelpful when the wheels came off. Four generations after Stowe’s owner was the wealthiest man in England, the 2nd Duke of Chandos and Buckingham was the country’s biggest debtor owing £1.5 million. (Well over £100 million by today's standards). An auction of the house contents in 1848 raised a paltry £75,000 so he skipped off abroad leaving the house to deteriorate.

Stowe School and Stowe House

By the 1920s it was facing demolition, but was saved by JF Roxburgh who wanted to found a school and needed a building. Most of the country's great 'public schools' - which are of course not open to the general public - are old foundations; Stowe is probably the only twentieth century foundation among them, but it has been a remarkably successful venture. Well known 'Old Stoics' include David Niven, Richard Branson and George Melly.

Stowe House

The school has outgrown Stowe House, though additions have been sympathetic, but it still uses the old building so only a few rooms are open to the public – Stowe School was closed for the summer, but they were hosting several summer schools.

The Old Library, Stowe House

The Old Library remains a school library. The old books went in the sale of 1858, but the restocked mahogany bookcases still line the walls and look down in bemusement at the reading lamps and laptops of modern library life. The ceiling has been recently returned to its former glory with more gold leaf than we have seen since Mandalay.

The ceiling of the Old Library, Stowe House

The music room has good views over the park and some interesting murals. I do not know who painted the beings with dragon's hind legs, a woman's upper body and wings, but when he decided to balance a vase of flowers their heads did he not think this might be a step too far?

Music Room murals, Stowe House

The Marble Saloon is said to be the masterpiece of Vincenzo Valdrè (I thought I had never heard of him, but I had been looking at his paintings on the ceiling of St Patrick’s Hall in Dublin Castle only a month before). The columns are scagliola made to look like Sicilian jade and the statues are plaster replicas of 'the sort of statues that would have been here'. The design is 'inspired by' (does that mean 'copied from'?) the Pantheon in Rome, but the Marble Saloon is elliptical instead of circular.

The Marble Saloon, Stowe House

This shape caused enormous problems for the builders of the dome and added even more expense - but money is no object to those on the fast track to bankruptcy.

The Dome of the Marble Saloon, Stowe House

The Temple of Ancient Virtue, Captain Grenville's Column and the Temple of British Worthies

Back outside we walked through the park, past the Temple of Easy Ancient Virtue…

The Temple of Ancient Virtues

… and Captain Grenville's Column - there are columns to allsorts of odds and sods dotted around the landscape -….

Captain Grenville's Column, Stowe

…...and down to the Temple of British Worthies, a curving roofless exedra displaying busts of the good, the bad and the ugly. The eclectic selection involves several monarchs (including Alfred the Great - who seems to be stalking us at the moment - and Elizabeth I as the token woman) a couple of pirates (Raleigh, Drake) one or two genuine greats (Shakespeare, Newton) and some who induce the question 'who he?' The name of eighteenth century Whig politician Sir John Barnard has not come winging down the centuries.

Lynne (who is not worthy) [Oh yes I am! L] and the Temple of British Worthies, Stowe

The Gothic Temple and the Palladian Bridge

…Continuing towards the river we caught sight of this monstrosity.

The Gothic Temple, Stowe

…Called the Gothic Temple it was designed by James Gibb in 1741, right at the start of the Gothic Revival. I doubt any Goth, original or revived, would recognise it, though it does seem to foreshadow Hollywood gothic. It is smaller than it looks from a distance and is available as a holiday let - a strange but interesting place to stay.

…Returning to the river we crossed the Palladian Bridge, which has featured in many costume dramas as well as on National Trust membership cards, and made our way back to reception for a cup of tea and a sandwich before making the short drive back into Buckingham.

The Palladian Bridge, Stowe

It is impossible not to be impressed by Stowe, but perhaps not in the way the builders intended. It was the product of great effort and expense over several generations by people who had a lot of money, little sense and even less taste. It is well worth a visit, but is best not taken too seriously.

Buckingham

Nearby, Buckingham's small centre is largely Georgian. In 1725 fire destroyed a third of the town and provoked much rebuilding.

The White Hart, Buckingham

Market Square and Gaol/Museum

The market square has several jarringly modern shop fronts but is dominated by the town gaol. The gothic-style building was erected in 1748 and paid for by Viscount Cobham. The rounded front was added by George Gilbert Scott in 1839. Sir (as he became in 1871) George Gilbert Scott was a local boy who made good and designed, among much else, the Albert Memorial.

Buckingham Old Gaol

Having lost the status of ‘county town’ it was hoped the refurbished gaol would help keep the county assizes in Buckingham, but they followed everything else down the road to Aylesbury.

The gaol was later used as a police station, a fire station, an armoury, an antiques shop and a café before becoming the town museum in 1993. The cells now house an interesting exhibition covering local history, rural life and the Buckinghamshire Military Trust.

The cells, Buckingham Old Gaol

On the ground floor around the worryingly small exercise yard, once open to the sky but today rather hot under its modern roof, is an exhibition of the life and times of Flora Thompson, writer of, among other things, Lark Rise to Candleford. The book, and to a lesser extent the recent television series, was partly autobiographical. Flora Thompson was born Flora Timms (the heroine of Lark Rise was called Laura Timmins) in 1876 in the hamlet of Juniper Hill (fictionalised as Lark Rise) just 8 miles from Buckingham. Candleford is based partly on the larger village of Fringford, and partly on Buckingham. The exhibition includes a collection of costumes from the show.

Flora Thompson's typewriter

Buckingham Chantry Chapel

George Gilbert Scott also designed Buckingham’s workhouse, which has been demolished, and made 'improvements' – as was the Victorian wont - to the church and to the fifteenth century Chantry Chapel, the oldest building in the town. A chantry chapel is one built and endowed for the purpose of saying masses for the dead to speed them through purgatory. It is now a Quaker meeting house and part time second-hand book shop and cafe. Manned by volunteers its opening hours are limited, indeed it closed fifteen minutes before we got there.

The Chantry Chapel, Buckingham

So now I have been to Buckingham. Stowe apart, there is not much to see, but I am glad we made the effort - and the town has some pleasing corners.

A pleasing corner of Buckingham

Just out of the picture to the right is a modern terrace, built in the same red brick and designed to blend in with the older buildings (an idea that never crossed the planners minds in nearby Dunstable).