Local heartache over route of high-speed rail link | UK news | The Guardian

Local heartache over route of high-speed rail link | UK news | The Guardian

Here on the edge of Wendover winter is rolling in, a rush of wind and spittle and sharp, sudden bursts of sunshine. Through the damp sky, cables run with a wet crackle between pylons raised like vast, clenched knuckles — an emblem, perhaps, for the Goliath of progress that once again threatens this small Buckinghamshire market town.

Wendover lies in a valley amid the Chiltern hills, an area of outstanding natural beauty, just 35 miles from London. It has a population of 7,600, and a main street that is filled with boutiques and bookshops, antique stores and tea rooms. There are a couple of pubs, the Red Lion and the Shoulder of Mutton, a delicatessen, hairdressing salons, estate agents, and the kind of historic buildings that stirs a particular kind of British pride.