Haddenham in Buckinghamshire

Travelling back from Oxford on Monday I stopped off at Haddenham, a large village north of Thame in Buckinghamshire. Aylesbury ducks were bred on ponds around the village and have been re-introduced on the pond by the village green.



St Mary’s Church stands beside the duck pond and village green – you can’t get more English than that!



The tower has early Gothic blind arcading around the belfry and the porch on the north side is two storey.



Inside the church is one of the famous Norman fonts (12th century) which are found in the Aylesbury area.There are some 22 'Aylesbury' fonts, named after one of the best examples in St. Mary's Church, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. The fonts are cup or chalice-shaped with vertical fluting on the lower part of the bowl.They were mostly made at the end of the 12th century, of stone from the Totternhoe quarry in Bedfordshire. The fluting on the bowl at Haddenham differs from the others as it consists of a series of triangles.There are dragons in the frieze.