High Wycombe; Sunday, 02 July, 2023

I had an early breakfast and checked out of the hotel before heading down into town – on foot this morning as the buses to the hotel don’t run on a Sunday. I made it down to town with a couple of minutes to spare before the bus onto my first stop of the day in Beaconsfield.

Located in the heart of this very pretty Chiltern market town is Bekonscot, the worlds largest model village, a place where it’s always the 1930s, across seven different themed areas including a village green, busy market town and an art deco high street, complete with tube station.

There is a lot to see at the site, not least of all the intricacy of the models – with lots to see going on inside the buildings, as well as the (in)famous punning names for many of the shops on display including Argue & Twist Solicitors, Lee Key Plumbers Merchant and Ivor Cavity’s Sweet Shop.

After spending more time than I thought I would looking round the site I headed back to the bus stop just in time to make the bus back into High Wycombe, hopping off on the high street to walk up the steep hill to the buildings above the railway line and the Victorian mansion that houses the Wycombe Museum.

The museum uses 10 key artefacts from it’s collection to tell the story of the town and the surrounding area from the prehistoric through to the modern day – with a particular focus on the furniture factories that were a major part of Wycombe’s industrial past.

From the museum I headed back down into town to grab a very late lunch before having a little bit of a wander around the centre before catching a bus up to the retail park beyond the hotel so I didn’t have to slog my way back up Marlow Hill which had been steep enough going down in the morning that I didn’t want to attempt it going back up.

The bus up to the retail park runs every 30 minutes on a Sunday, which turned out to be perfectly suitable as it took about 10 minutes to walk back to the hotel, grab my luggage and another 10 minutes back to the bus stop meant I only had a couple of minutes to wait before the next one came round on it’s loop round the retail park before heading back down into town.

From the bus station I walked up to the station with a few minutes to spare before my train back into London.