Today is Buckinghamshire Day, a celebration of all things Northwest Home Counties, or at least it is if you're a flagpolefetishist or a features writer with a gap to fill. It might sound historic but was actually conjured up in 2015 for no better reason than that on 29th July 1948 a small wheelchair archery event took place at Stoke Mandeville hospital, a precursor to the Paralympic Games. I have nevertheless made a celebratory visit to the ceremonial county - not to the glories of Cliveden, the joys of Stowe, the heights of Ivinghoe, the depths of West Wycombe or the roundabouts of Milton Keynes but to a cluster of commuter villages by the M25 and a Bond-themed cul-de-sac.
The Ivers (which is the actual name of the parish council) covers a four mile semi-rural stripe just to the west of Greater London. The capital never extended this far partly thanks to the Green Belt but mainly halted by the River Colne, indeed very few roads cross Iver-ward between the M4 and the M40. The easiest way in is by train, that is assuming you manage to find a Crossrail service which stops at Iver, indeed this jumped-up accessible halt is comfortably the least used station on the entire Elizabeth line.
The thing about Iver station is that it's not actually in Iver, it's in Richings Park. This was originally the estate of a historic local mansion, purchased in 1922 by three brothers called Harry, Friend and Eric Sykes with the intention of transforming it into a garden village. They started by the railway building a swathe of 350 nice detacheds, but swiftly overreached themselves and went bust before expanding as planned in the direction of Colnbrook. That unbuilt area is currently a very large golf course, which I hope Rachel Reeves has her eye on, and the ex-mansion (which was the HQ of Bomber Command for the first six months of WW2) was located somewhere near the 10th hole.
I've skated over that somewhat but a resident has created a very detailed history of Richings Park on a non smartphone-friendly website, the content of which puts the heritage offering of many a London borough to shame.
The heart of Richings Park is a T-shaped rustic shopping parade, seemingly too large for the local population until you remember how much surplus dosh they must have. Pride of place on the corner goes to the locally-ubiquitous estate agent and a huggably non-twee cafe, with the inevitable interior designer, physiotherapist and wellness clinic further out. It must be disappointing only having a Costcutter for groceries, but Ocado delivers. A separate parade with slightly fewer dazzling hanging baskets provides somewhere for the vet and Indian restaurant to hang out, and what looks like a Tudor pub is actually a 1920s hotel/bar with an eye on the conference trade. And perhaps the intermediate avenues aren't lined by homes quite as upmarket as I might have suggested, but you only have to look at the spacious street pattern to see how large their gardens must be.
Annoyingly for residents of Iver their village is a mile to the north, and although there is technically a connecting bus route it only runs three times a day. The intervening walk follows a ratrun lane past the entrance to two business parks, an industrial estate and a water treatment works because rural Buckinghamshire isn't all green, especially the motorway-proximate part. At the halfway point the road crosses the Slough Arm of the Grand Union, a quiet straight-ish backwater which although navigable generally only ripples for ducks. On my visit a somewhat rough-looking family were unloading bikes and mopeds from a trailer so that two generations could career off down the steps and terrorise the towpath for an hour or two, so I'm glad I didn't need to go that way.
The village of Iver is the oldest in the area, located by a crossing of the Colne on the road between Uxbridge and Langley. It has a wiggly high street still lined by a handful of pre-Georgian buildings and a sturdy church that's structurally from the 15th century but is thought to have replaced a Saxon chapel. If you fancy a trip up the tower they're doing tours next Sunday afternoon (and also August 18th) with cream teas available after you descend. The oldest of Iver's pubs is the half-timbered Swan which has been serving beer since 1576 and was Sid James' local when he lived nearby while filming the Carry Ons. Alas The Bull across the road is empty and currently up for sale with "Full planning permission for 12 units", so expect that to vanish soon, while The Chequers has been refurbished into commercial premises and The Fox and Pheasant has been flats for over a decade.
Iver had a market charter in medieval times but you'd never guess from its drably postwar shopping parade, indeed even the period clocktower is a 1993 construction. Being not far from Slough there are quite a few Indian takeaways, the best-named being the marble-fronted Sheeshmahal. Other retail presences include Iver Curry, Iver Grill, Iver Inn and Iver Dry Cleaners, although sadly nobody's plumped for something full-on punny like Iver Bouquet, Iver Cavity or Iver Hangover. I always think you can tell a lot about a neighbourhood from the way the local newsagent arranges their papers, so here the top row features the Times, the Mail and the Sun while last place on the bottom row is taken by the Guardian. Also look out for the board outside the parish office which encourages you to try the 4½ mile Iver Circular Walk, an approximate triangle which includes a lot of river and canal (and a smidgeon of Hillingdon).
The remaining significantly-sized Iver is Iver Heath, a relatively late developer thrust into focus when the A412 extended from Denham. The Five Points junction became a roundabout, the wedge between two former lanes became a nest of well-to-do cul-de-sacs and most homes seem to be named after whatever trees they replaced. St Margaret's church emerged in 1861, somewhat prematurely, and is linked via pine-y paths to a more recent congregation. Useful services in Iver Heath include a central village hall, a peripheral Co-op and also a pie and mash truck outside the Stag and Hounds, but I suspect that's more to cater for through traffic heading to/from the M25. Non-car-owners are mostly stuffed but buses do run half-hourly to Slough, Iver and Uxbridge so escape is possible.
The most famous place hereabouts, indeed absolute cinematic royalty, can be found a mile from Five Points at the northern end of Pinewood Lane. Originally all that was up here were a few lodges and Heatherden Hall, an MP's country house hideaway, but in 1936 J Arthur Rank went into partnership with building tycoon Charles Boot and created a Hollywood-style film studio. The old entrance is still there with a gabled gateway and a bus shelter out front from which employees and official visitors can catch a regular shuttle to Slough, Uxbridge, West Ruislip or Gerrards Cross stations. But go a little further and a massive boxy vista opens up, a sprawl of grey sheds of many convenient sizes, and this is the multifunctional behemoth that Pinewood Studios has become.
There are stages named after Sean Connery and Richard Attenborough, and other buildings named after Moneypenny and Carrie Fisher. There are roads named after Broccoli and Goldfinger, and on the extension across the road Skywalker Avenue and (haha) Meryl Street. There's a 65000-gallon water tank from the early days that still floods actors as necessary, eminently visible from the street outside. Also clearly seen is the roof of the iconic 007 stage, the largest on the lot, although it's not the original it's a post-conflagration rebuild. I hadn't realised quite how utterly extensive all this is, having previously only walked along the rear fence in Black Park, and according to a planning notice on a lamppost Pinewood still has expansion plans on adjacent farmland comprising over 1½ million square feet of 'film production buildings'.
If you have the money you can live opposite in a small private cul-de-sac called Bond Close, built in 2004. It has twelve properties and I now regret not trespassing beyond the warning notices to see if the house between 6 and 8 is numbered 007. I think these are the most northerly houses in Iver, bar any fake ones on the filming lots, a full three miles north of the station of the same name. And OK you're not going to see much of the studios, nor is there anything majorly worth seeing inbetween, but I hope you now appreciate what's just over the Buckinghamshire border on Buckinghamshire Day. Iver been so you don't have to.
