Attractions and Places To See around Thornborough - Top 20

You can wander between the remainders of the walls, which allows to get a good impression of the original layout and size of the rooms.

Excellent ice creams from Tricycle Treats!

detour when the ouse is flooded

Bancroft is one of the most fascinating archaeological landscapes in Milton Keynes. Known primarily for its Roman villa, archaeological digs have revealed almost continuous occupation from 800 BC.

The Iron Trunk (aka Cosgrove Aqueduct) is a navigable cast iron trough aqueduct that carries the Grand Union Canal over the River Great Ouse at Milton Keynes. Formed of two cast iron trough spans, with a single central masonry pier, it is the world's first wide canal cast iron trough aqueduct.

A Roman Villa was discovered when the new estate of Bancroft was being built in the early 70s. Clues had already come after fragments of Roman pottery were noticed in the banks of nearby Loughton Brook in 1967. The area was carefully excavated over the next 15 years to reveal the villa's underfloor heating system with a limestone open hearth, a bath suite, colonnaded verandas and porch and an ornamental walled garden with fish pond and a summerhouse. Among the Roman artefacts uncovered were Samian tableware, a limestone board game, silver-bronze brooches, decorated hair combs and around 1,000 coins Today the site shows the outline of the villa and its rooms.

The Stony Stratford Nature Reserve is a beautiful nugget of countryside with cleared islands and renovated bird hides connected by footpaths. The nature reserve offers nesting grounds and thriving wetland habitats for wildfowl and waders such as Kingfishers. Make sure to take advantage of the picturesque lake with its dipping platform, known for its vibrant dragonflies and damselflies.

The Temple of Ancient Virtue is a circular peripteral ionic temple with a domed cella on a podium, approached by two flights of steps. The Temple of Ancient Virtue is a circular peripteral ionic temple with a domed cella on a podium, approached by two flights of steps. Built in the 1730's to a design probably by Kent. The design is inspired by the Temple of Sibyl at Tivoli. Copies of the original four statues of greek heroes representing the enlightened ideals of Lord Cobham and his Whig friends have been reintroduced. Although now largely obscured from the west, the Temple of Ancient Virtue, completed in 1737 to Kent’s designs, was intended to close the long vista known as the Great Cross Walk which passed at a slight angle across the south front of the house. This arrangement followed Joseph Addison’s vision of a ‘great road’ along which ‘the middle-aged party of mankind ... marched behind the standard of Ambition’. The temple was raised on a grass mound, and its site was far more open than it is now. The design was based on the ancient Temple of Vesta at Tivoli, which Kent knew at first hand from his extended sojourn in Italy in the 1710s, and from Book IV of Palladio’s Quattro Libri, here translated from the Corinthian to the Ionic order. The temple is inscribed on the outside ‘Priscae virtuti’ (‘To Ancient Virtue’) and was devised as a cenotaph to four Ancient Greeks who embodied the virtues that Lord Cobham found so lacking in the public figures of his own day: Socrates, Homer, Lycurgus and Epaminondas. The circular temple form has a solemnity and nobility well suited to memorial buildings, from Hawksmoor’s great mausoleum at Castle Howard (1729) to John Russell Pope’s Jefferson Memorial in Washington (1939). Bordered by laurel and elevated both by the grass mount and its own basement, with narrow stairs cut into it, this is an overtly exclusive building worthy only of a select few. The four Ancient Greeks are represented by life-size Portland stone statues signed by Peter Scheemakers, and for which he was paid in 1737. These were sold in 1921, but have recently been replaced in the form of casts taken from the originals. The chosen individuals represent four of the five branches of public life referred to in Addison’s essay – a general (Epaminondas), a legislator (Lycurgus), a poet (Homer) and a philosopher (Socrates). Above the niches are the following inscriptions (with translations taken from Defoe and Richardson’s Tour of 1742): I. EPAMINONDAS Cujus a virtute, prudentia, verecundia, Thebanorum respublica Libertatem simul & imperium, Disciplinam bellicam, civilem & domesticam, Accepit; Eoque amisso, perdidit. From whose Valour, Prudence, and Moderation, the Republick of Thebes received both Liberty and Empire, its military, civil, and domestick Discipline; and, with him, lost them. II. LYCURGUS Qui summo cum consilio, inventis legibus, Omnemque contra corruptelam munitis optime, Pater patriae, Libertatem firmissimam, Et mores sanctissimos, Expulsa cum divitiis, avaritia, luxuria, libidine, In multa secula Civibus suis instituit. Who having invented Laws with the greatest Wisdom, and most excellently fenced them against all Corruption, as a Father of his Country, instituted for his Countrymen the firmest Liberty, and the soundest Morality, which endured for many Ages, he having, together with Riches, banished Avarice, Luxury, and Lust. III. SOCRATES Qui corruptissima in civitate innocens, Bonorum hortator, unici cultor DEI, Ab inutili otio, & vanis disputationibus, Ad officia vitae, & societatis commoda, Philosophiam avocavit, Hominum sapientissimus. Who being innocent in a most corrupt State, an Encourager of the Good, a Worshipper of One only god, as the wisest of Men, reduced Philosophy from useless Indolence, and vain Disputations, to the Duties of Life, and the Advantages of Society. IV. HOMERUS Qui poetarum princeps, idem & maximus, Virtutis praeco, & immortalitatis largitor, Divino carmine, Ad pulcre audendum, & patiendum fortiter, Omnibus notus gentibus, omnes incitat. Who being the First of Poets, as he was the greatest, the Herald of Virtue, and Bestower of Immortality, known to all Nations, incites all, in a Divine Poem, honourably to dare, and resolutely to suffer. The inscriptions placed above the doorways invite the visitor to reflect on the qualities represented by these four men, but also on their counterparts and opposites in modern life, as represented by neighbouring buildings on which the doorways were aligned: Charum esse civem, bene de republica mereri, laudari, coli, diligi, gloriosum est: metui vero, & in odio esse, invidiosum, detestabile, imbecillum, caducum. To be dear to our Country, to deserve well of the State, to be praised, honoured, and beloved, is glorious; but to be dreaded, and hated, is a matter of Ill-will, detestable, weak, ruinous. Justitiam cole & pietatem, quae cum sit magna in parentibus & propinquis, tum in patria maxima est. Ea vita est in coelum, & in huc coetum eorum, qui jam vixerunt. Maintain Justice, and thy relative Duty; which, as it is great, when exercised toward our Parents and Kindred, so is greatest towards our Country. That life is the Way of Heaven, and to this Assembly of those, who have already lived. (MOLA survey 2019 Clearly visible in the SUA data and is situated on top of a well defined mound overlooking Worthy River to the east. Source: nationaltrust.org.uk