A Recycled Wolverton Walk

As you walk around Wolverton you may notice a collection of decorative slabs set into the pavement. These were part of the Wolverton Walk project which commissioned an artist, Julia Mannheim, to produce a visual guide to the town. She asked the people of Wolverton for donations of unwanted household items, buttons, toothbrushes, broken toys, and then embedded these items into terrazzo markers set into the pavement. Some of these markers have now degraded and some of the landmarks they refer to are no longer visible. This trail recreates some of the original walk and borrows some of its words and recycles some of the markers to give an updated Wolverton Walk. It starts at the Agora on Church Street and heads up to The Square to pick up the earlier trail. It generally follows this around the Victorian grid square of Wolverton’s red brick terraces but with an extension to what’s left of the Print Works.

1. The Agora
 
This trail starts at the Agora on Church Street, designed for the Milton Keynes Development Corporation by Wayland Tunley in the late 1970s. Pevsner’s Guide to Buckinghamshire considered the building to “have a toughness considered appropriate to the grittiness of a railway town”.

2. The Trail
 
Follow the path from the bus stop which leads up the sloping alleyway beside the Agora as we head towards Market Square to pick up the original pavement trail.

3. Buckingham Street
 
At the top of the slope, turn right into Buckingham Street as we return to the original grid of the Wolverton streetscape. Although the street signs suggest this is Market Square there is no record of regular markets being held here.

4. The Square
 
Turn left at the far corner of The Square past the Masonic Hall, looking out for the Wolverton Walk “Start/Finish” marker.

5. Start/Finish
 
This trail follows some of the points, markers and places of interest from an earlier Wolverton Walk which collected together rubbish and spread it around town in a series of terrazzo markers set into the pavements. We don’t always follow the pavement markers.

6. Aylesbury Street
 
Before turning right into Aylesbury Street look out for the War Memorial, set in a small garden in front of Foundation House. The Square used to be dominated by the Congregational Church which was demolished in the 1970s. Turn the corner into Aylesbury Street, around the old Co-op Bakery, past the bottom of Bedford St.

7. Oxford Street
 
Turn left up Oxford Street, looking out for the stepped Dutch gabled houses on the right. Note the boot scrapers and the ornamental brickwork typical of Wolverton’s Victorian houses, some of which retain their original front doors with elegant stained glass lights and tiled porches.  

8. Green Lane
 
Turn right at the top of Oxford Street and walk along Green Lane to the Victorian Water Tower (originally one of two) built on the highest land in the town. It used to hold large quantities of clean water, and was once the main supply for the town.

9. The Beeches
 
Green Lane becomes Western Road and we pass two houses, flanked by two massive copper beech trees, built by the Railway Company for their senior managers. The company built a number of large villas, many of which were named after trees.  

10. Western Road
 
Further down Western Road on the right is the ‘top’ Working Men’s Club. This Edwardian building was nicknamed the “Rhubarb Arms” as it was a regular watering hole on the way back from the nearby allotments.

11. Peel Road
 
Turn right into Peel Road and walk towards the fine Edwardian front of Wyvern School with its dramatically pitched roofs, little towers, and weather vane built in the Arts & Crafts style.

12. ​Wyvern School
 
A rare Judas Tree grows in front of the school, a mass of pink pea-like flowers which appear before the leaves in the late spring. At the school, turn right down Aylesbury Street, noting the old hayloft or warehouse building on the opposite side of the street.

13. Windsor Street
 
Turn left down Windsor Street to get an excellent view (from a distance) of the Victorian Railway Works Wall. Walk towards the wall.

14. Church Street
 
Turn left down Church Street with the Victorian Railway Company School, now a nursery school, on the left hand side.

15. Jersey Road
 
Continue along Church Street passing the Wolverton Industrial and Provident Society corner shop at Jersey Road and then the West End Methodist Church at Anson Road.

16. ​Anson Road
 
We have left the original Wolverton Pavement Trail here to follow Church Street into a housing development built on the site of the McCorquodale Print Works. 

17. McCorquodale Road
 
Turn right down McCorquodale Road noting how the modern housing mimics Victorian terraces and townhouses.

18. Stratford Road
 
Turn right into Stratford Road to pass what remains of the McCorquodale factory wall. The rest of The Print is now covered in housing and retail units. As you cross over Anson Road and Jersey Road, the remains of the Railway Works comes into view on the other side of Stratford Rd.

19. Barber's Picture Palace
 
Pass the only remaining early cinema building in Buckinghamshire, Barber’s Electric Picture Palace built in 1911. Across the road was the Railcare (since renamed Rose) Garden, created in the mid sixties with a new entrance to the Railway Works – described by one Wolverton resident as ‘the first breach in the Works wall, circa 1965’.

20. The Tram
 
Imagine the busy scene from the 1880s until 1926, when hundreds of men poured out of the Works to catch the tram home after a hard day’s work. A restored tram carriage can now be seen in the Milton Keynes Museum.

21. Cambridge Street
 
Turn right up Cambridge Street at the ‘bottom’ Working Men’s Club, and then first left turn along a back street to discover a white-walled house, the former “Drum & Monkey” off-licence, at 44A.

22. Back streets
 
Turn right at the “Drum & Monkey”, passing in front of Wolverton Evangelical Church, formerly the Labour Exchange, on your left. This alley marked the western edge of the town until 1893 when the construction of Cambridge Street began.

23. Old Police Station
 
Turn left onto Church Street and cross the road to find yourself at no 97, once the police station and Town Gaol, or short-term lock up for drunks.

24. ​Church Street
 
Continuing along Church Street, pass the Agora Centre, built by the Milton Keynes Development Corporation in 1979, and make up your own mind about its presence and position in the town. 

25. The Queen Vic
 
Cross over and have a look at the wonderfully ornate wrought iron sign above the Queen Victoria pub. The sign was made by Nutt, a local blacksmith, whose forge was in a nearby back way. This brings you back to the start of the trail.