Aldbury (/ˈɔːldbəri/) is a village and civil parish in Hertfordshire, England, near the borders of Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire in the Bulbourne valley of the Chiltern Hills, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
The village is a popular filming location, retaining several archetypical historical features: in the centre is a green and pond; close by stand well-preserved stocks and a whipping-post, and the Church of Saint John the Baptist.
It has a village shop and post office, two pubs, three cafés, a Church of England primary school, a sports ground and tennis court, as well as the nearby Stocks Golf Club.
Aldbury's picturesque setting and proximity to Tring railway station makes it one of the most desirable places to live in Hertfordshire.
[5] The wooded slope towards the Bridgewater Monument is one of the steepest ascents in Hertfordshire, crowned by a ridge at one of the five highest elevations in the county.
[9] In the time of Edward the Confessor Aldbury Manor was held by Alwin, a thegn of the king, and by 1086 was in the hands of Robert, Count of Mortain.
[5] In 1665, Sir Thomas Hyde, whose family had held the main manor for more than 100 years, died leaving the estate to his only daughter, Bridget.
Emma Katherine died in 1891, and left the estate to Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey, as a descendant of Samuel Whitbread.
Stocks House achieved some notoriety when in 1972 it was purchased by Victor Lownes, an owner of Playboy magazine, who hosted lavish, rowdy parties there, staffed by scantily-clad bunny girls.
The parties were attended by a number of celebrities of the day including Peter Cook, John Cleese, Christopher Reeve, Jack Nicholson, Keith Moon and Tony Curtis.
[5] On 6 January 1954, a Royal Air Force Vickers Valetta twin-engine training aircraft crashed at Tom's Hill, just south of the village.
The church was restored in 1866–1867 by W. Browning, who removed two Romanesque arches from the north arcade of the nave and dressed the exterior in flint rubble masonry and totternhoe Stone.
The small chapel contains a carved stone recumbent tomb of Sir Robert Whittingham (d.1471), a nobleman who was slain at the battle of Tewkesbury (illustrated below).
On the wall is a later monument to Sir Richard Anderson (1635–1699) of Pendley Manor and to his wife Elizabeth (1631–1698), sister of George, Viscount Hewwett.
Its next owner was Isaac Dell Master, whose initials "ID" and the date "1769" can be seen carved in the brickwork alongside the main front window.
West Midlands Trains run frequent passenger rail services southbound to London Euston and northbound to Milton Keynes Central.