Stoke Poges

The ploughman homeward plods his weary way
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

It was in the churchyard of this surprisingly still rural village that Thomas Gray was inspired to pen his Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. He often visited Stoke Poges to see his mother and aunt who lived in a large late-Georgian house built for the grandson of the famous Quaker, William Penn, and he was seated beside his mother’s tomb when he wrote the classic poem. The house is now the clubhouse of Stoke Poges Golf Club, where James Bond met Auric Goldfinger in the film Goldfinger. The statues seen in the film – one of them beheaded by Oddjob’s bowler hat – are still there. To the east of the church is the imposing Gray Monument, designed by James Wyatt and erected in 1799. The Church of St Giles itself is very handsome and dates from the 13th century, but perhaps its most interesting feature is the unusual medieval bicycle depicted in one of the stained glass windows. Dating back to the 1600s, the window depicts a naked man with a horn astride a vintage hobby horse. Behind the church is an Elizabethan manor house where Elizabeth I was entertained and Charles I was imprisoned.