Architecture of Aylesbury
Frequently, the work is by one of England's more notable architects – Christopher Wren, John Vanbrugh, Robert Adam, William Kent or even Quinlan Terry.
Cruciform in design, it follows a common layout of English churches - the tower in the centre, the nave with aisles in the west, leading to the chancel in the east, and chapels in the north and south transepts.
Many fine architectural details did survive the neglect and following restoration – the large west window, the perpendicular roofs to the transepts, the late 12th-century font and the four misericords besides some well-carved stone monuments and memorial tablets.
This encroachment continued into the 16th century until the western area of the square (where the Dark Lantern public house is today) was a complex of alleys and lanes.
These timber framed dwellings which date from the 17th century have oversailing upper stories, a common feature of the period, which had the advantage of increasing the space of a small land site.
Sited upon a hill, it is surrounded by narrow streets, and squares of substantial 18th-century townhouses, which were not included in the large replanning and development of the town in the late 1960s.
The centre bay projects slightly to accentuate the main entrance, which is protected by a porch in a loose palladian style of two unfluted Corinthean columns supporting a pediment.
The pitched roof is hidden by an unusual parapet masquerading as an undecorated entablature, showing the unknown architect had an interest in a purer form of classicism than he was permitted to design in Aylesbury.
By this date, architectural engravings of works by the master architects in Rome and elsewhere were widely available, and it is likely that this is the source of the inspiration behind some of the more interesting features of Ceely House, including its porch which is a miniature portico.
This was certainly the case in Aylesbury where the 19th century proved to be a period of huge expansion, with the creation of a large amount of new buildings both private and public in a variety of revival styles.
Two of Aylesbury's earliest notable 19th century buildings were at the time of their erection built for social reasons in open countryside, opposite each other, on the road to Bierton immediately adjacent to the town.
In fact Aylesbury's workhouse built of a mellow redbrick, with large bay windows and tall decorative chimneys was obviously designed by the architects Strethill Oakes Foden and Henry W. Parker[6][7] to resemble an inviting Tudor manor house.
The large gatehouse (to the right in the illustration) reminiscent of those of an Elizabethan or Jacobean Manor in fact was designed to provide, the barest legal, accommodation for passing vagrants on whom the town did not wish to spend its money.
Built of red brick with dressed stone quoining the focal point is the large central bay containing the arched entrance.
The central bay is flanked by two short wings containing administrative offices leading to two large cubed blocks which were the residences of the governor and his deputy.
The upper floor, which would have been the banks administrative offices, suggests a piano nobile, with tall sash windows crowned by segmental pediments.
Designed by D Brandon in 1865, the Corn Exchange takes the form of a red brick tripartite triumphal arch leading to further council offices.
This Jacobethan building sits incongruously in the corner of the Market Square next to the classical county hall and opposite a bow fronted regency public house with an ornate entablature.
The agricultural depression which occurred from the 1870s resulted in a steep decline in the value of grain, the corn exchange never realised the profits its builders intended[9] and in 1901 it was eventually sold to the Urban District Council as the new Aylesbury Town Hall.
The clocktower complete with spire sits on a slightly raised dais from the rest of the square and has been used as a platform from which important speeches have been made in the past.
In the mid-1960s a decision was taken to redevelop and replan a large central part of the town, providing a new shopping centre, bus station, and County Hall.
Following Aylesbury's long history of using the "in house" county architect rather than employing a more eminent one, Frederick B. Pooley came to design his most monumental and controversial work.
While at the time the people of Aylesbury and the surrounding district were mostly happy with their new shopping centre, more controversial was the new County Hall, the foundation stone of which was laid on 22 October 1964 by Sir Henry Floyd, Lord Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire.
Not particularly remarkable compared to the Sears Tower, but dominating a predominantly 18th century town of low brick houses, it proved to be a conversational piece of architecture.
The building is visible from many villages and towns several miles distant, thus residents of Buckinghamshire are constantly aware of the location of their seat of local Government.
While its design is a bold conception freely using works by such architects as Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier and De Stijil and it has similarities to Paul Rudolph's School of Art and Architecture at Yale completed in 1963.
With its Brutalist roots in the 1940s, and earlier, Aylesbury's County Hall was, like its classical predecessor, already dated by the time of its 1966 completion: by then architecture was moving on to the cleaner and straighter lines and sheets of plate glass advocated by such architects as Mies van der Rohe.
County Hall though does possess identity and boldness of design, and an architectural abrasiveness accentuated by the heavy contrasts of glass and dominating concrete.
Conceived as an office block for an international company, its curved facades hint at a revival of the Streamline Moderne: this is further enhanced by the upper floors themselves appearing as bands of brickwork and glass.
[14] Today this building known as Aylesbury Vale District Council's Exchange Street Offices is part of the administration centre of the local government.
