Buckingham Arm

The Buckingham Arm is a canal that once ran from Cosgrove, Northamptonshire to Buckingham (in England). It was built as an arm of the Grand Junction Canal, in two separate phases, opening in 1800 and 1801. It was disused from 1932, but was not finally abandoned until 1964. It is now the subject of a restoration programme with the Buckingham end holding water for a length of nearly 400m.

History

On 30 April 1793, the Grand Junction Canal was authorised by an Act of Parliament, and the act made provision for an arm from the main line to Old Stratford, ending at the former Roman road of Watling Street, which was a major communications route. The continuation to Buckingham was surveyed in 1793, and included in another Act of Parliament, passed in September 1794, which authorised the construction of the Aylesbury, Buckingham and Wendover arms.

The initial section to Old Stratford was to be constructed as a broad canal, capable of use by boats which were 14 feet (4.3 m) wide. The Grand Junction Canal had to cross the River Great Ouse at Wolverton, and the original plan was to construct a crossing on the level, with a flight of locks down one side of the valley and another up the other side. The Old Stratford branch would have had a junction with the main line at the lowest level, and followed the course of the Great Ouse valley. From Old Stratford, the canal was to continue as a 7-foot (2.1 m) narrow canal, which would have joined the river at Passenham, effectively becoming a navigation, as a number of locks would have been needed along the course of the river. The plans were changed when it was decided to construct a high level crossing of the Great Ouse, ruling out the possibility of a junction, and so the arm left the main line just above Cosgrove lock, following the north side of the Great Ouse valley, and resulted in a canal which was on one level for most of its length, with just two locks as it approached Buckingham.

Buckingham

Coordinates: 51°59′44″N 0°59′12″W / 51.9956°N 0.9868°W / 51.9956; -0.9868

Buckingham is a town in north Buckinghamshire, England, close to the borders of Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire. The town has a population of 12,043 (United Kingdom Census 2011). Buckingham is also a civil parish designated as a town council.

Buckingham was declared the county town of Buckinghamshire in the 10th century when it was made the capital of the newly formed shire of Buckingham until Aylesbury took over this role early in the 18th century.

Buckingham has a variety of restaurants and pubs, typical of a small market town. It has a number of local shops, both national and independent. Market days are Tuesday and Saturday which take over Market Hill and the High Street cattle pens. Buckingham is twinned with Mouvaux, France.

History

Buckingham and the surrounding area has been settled for some time with evidence of Roman settlement found in several sites close the River Great Ouse, including a temple south of the A421 at Bourton Grounds which was excavated in the 1960s and dated to the 3rd century AD. A possible Roman building was identified at Castle Fields in the 19th century. Pottery, kiln furniture and areas of burning found at Buckingham industrial estate suggest the site of some early Roman pottery kilns here.

Buckingham (UK Parliament constituency)

Coordinates: 52°00′00″N 0°59′17″W / 52.000°N 0.988°W / 52.000; -0.988

Buckingham /ˈbʌkɪŋm̩/ is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 1997 by John Bercow, who later became Speaker of the House of Commons.

Boundaries

1885-1918: The Municipal Borough of Buckingham, the Sessional Divisions of Ashendon, Buckingham, Newport, and Stony Stratford, and part of the Sessional Division of Winslow.

1918-1950: The Municipal Borough of Buckingham, the Urban Districts of Bletchley, Linslade, and Newport Pagnell, the Rural Districts of Buckingham, Newport Pagnell, Stratford and Wolverton, Wing, and Winslow, in the Rural District of Aylesbury the civil parishes of Ashenden, Chearsley, Grendon Underwood, Kingswood, Ludgershall, Woodham, and Wotton Underwood, and the part of the Rural District of Long Grendon which was not included in the Aylesbury constituency.

1950-1974: The Municipal Borough of Buckingham, the Urban Districts of Bletchley, Linslade, Newport Pagnell, and Wolverton, and the Rural Districts of Buckingham, Newport Pagnell, Wing, and Winslow.

Buckingham (unit)

The Buckingham (symbol: B) is a CGS unit of electric quadrupole, named in honour of the chemical physicist A. David Buckingham who was the first to measure a molecular quadrupole moment. It is defined as 1×10⁻²⁶statcoulomb-centimetre². This is equivalent to 1 Debye-Ångström, where 1 Debye = 1×10⁻¹⁸statcoulomb-centimetre is the cgs unit of molecular dipole moment and 1 Ångström = 1×10⁻⁸ cm.

One Buckingham corresponds to the quadrupole moment resulting from two opposing dipole moments but an equal magnitude of 1 Debye which are separated by a distance of 1 Angstrom, a typical bond length. This is analogous to the Debye unit for the dipole moment of two opposing charges of 1×10⁻¹⁰ statcoulomb separated by 1 Angstrom, and the name Buckingham for the unit was in fact suggested by Peter Debye in 1963 in honour of Buckingham.

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