Waddesdon

The village is home to another of the county’s magnificent country houses, in this case Waddesdon Manor (National Trust). Built between 1874 and 1889 for Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild, in the style of a French Renaissance château, the house is set in rolling English countryside and borrows elements from several different French châteaux. The Manor is surrounded by formal gardens and the landscaped grounds contain, among many treasures, a French-style aviary in a part of the gardens designed by the popular 20th-century American landscape artist Lanning Roper. Also within the grounds are hundreds of trees both native and foreign, a fabulous parterre, Italian, French and Dutch statuary, and a huge pheasant named Ferdinand made from 15,000 bedding plants on a steel frame. The French influence even extended to the carthorses used on the site – powerful Percheron mares that were imported from Normandy. The house contains one of the best collections of 18th-century French decorative art in the world, including Sèvres porcelain, Beauvais tapestries and fine furniture. There are also paintings by Gainsborough, Reynolds and 17th-century Dutch and Flemish masters. The Manor has two restaurants, a coffee shop, gift shop, a wine and food shop, and a plant centre.