Stokenchurch

Stokenchurch has spent four centuries as the place people stop on the way to somewhere else. Royalist and Parliamentarian troops changed horses here between Oxford and London, and now and then both sides turned up at the same time and had to fight over the stabling. These days it's commuters, and junction 5 of the M40 does the job the coaching inns used to. The giant telecoms tower on the ridge tells drivers exactly where the village is from miles away, which is more than most of them ever stop to find out.