 |
|
| Around the
Town |
| The
High Street |
Wide, curving slightly and graced with an astonishing
variety of architectural styles, Amersham High Street
is one of the most visually satisfying in the country.
Near the Market Hall, which successfully blocks it at
its eastern end, is The Gables, an unusual house of about
1640 and opposite, set back from the road, is Apsley House,
a handsome residence of the time of William and Mary.
On the same side the heavily timbered frontage of the
King’s Arms gives some indication of what the High
Street may have looked like in the 17th century, though
in later years many of the half-timbered frontages, including
that of the King’s Arms have once more been revealed,
but many other such frontages probably still hide behind
their present prim facades.On the northern side, set back
from the High Street is the Amersham Museum, which is
well worth a visit if one wishes to obtain a good feel
for the long history of the town and its inhabitants.
Up an alley from the King’s Arms is the delightful
Baptist Chapel of 1783, beautifully kept and cared for,
with its fascinating lantern on top and a British School
of 1852 added to it at the rear. Further along is another
Drake gift to the town, the gabled almshouses of 1657,
built on three sides of a little courtyard and separated
from the outside world by a wall and tall wrought-iron
gate. On the other side of the road is a curiosity in
the Wee House - a 17th century building with its original
frontage and said to be one of the tiniest houses in England.
It has since been modernised internally and extended to
the rear.
The High Street ends with the massive wall of Little Shardeloes
on the left, and on the right, the handsome Town Mill.
On this side of the High Street is the attractive row
of cottages called Turpin’s Row, not because of any
association with the highwayman, but unromantically taking
their name from that of the builder. At Town Mill a bridge
over the Misbourne leads to Mill Lane, but a path turns
immediately right and follows theMisbourne along the backs
of the houses in the High Street. The path cuts across
the beautifully sited Barn Meadow with the odd-looking
Georgian Gothic buildings of the brewery maltings in the
corner, and reaches Church Street again at the bottom
of Rectory Hill.
A rather longer exploration can be made from the western
end of the High Street by turning left up Cherry Lane
just past the bow-fronted Swan Inn. A few yards up the
lane a footpath crosses it at a stile and gate and continues
left passing the gardens on the south side of the High
Street on rising ground, giving wonderful views across
the red rooftops of the town to the Rectory on its hillside
site and the adjoining woods. The path eventually widens
into a gravel lane known as the Platt, reputed to be the
oldest footway in Amersham, and passes Chapel House near
the old Baptist Burial Ground. A door in the wall can
lead you down by the side of the Chapel and out into the
High Street again. Continuing down the Platt past the
fairytale 16th Century Chimney Cottage the path emerges
onto Whielden Street which is the main road from Amersham
to High Wycombe. Some distance down Whielden Street on
the right is the Victorian facade of the original workhouse
buildings - once the Hospital, built by Scott in 1838
and with the date inscribed in brick on the front.
Following the major redevelopment of Amersham Hospital
this site has been converted to private housing.
Nearby is the charming and unpretentious Friends Meetings
House of 1685.
Turning left in Whielden Street from The Platt, the road
comes back to the Market Square. Just off on the right
before the road junction, is a quiet cul-de-sac in which
are the Brazil’s Houses For The Elderly provided
for the town by a local industrialist in 1963.
The Bypass, completed in the Autumn of 1987, relieves
the High Street and Broadway of dense traffic, much of
which is heavy vehicles, which has been steadily building
up over the years. It commences with a roundabout on A413
at the Eastern end of the town, crosses Gore Hill in a
cutting and Whielden Street with a flyover to the South
of the Hospital. It then passes West emerging on to the
A413 at the West end of the town near to the entrance
of Shardeloes Estate. |
The new part of Amersham, a mile
away from the original town and up on a hill, is colloquially
termed “top” Amersham. It developed around the
station from the early part of the century, and is reached
either by the steep Rectory Hill near the church or past
the Beaconsfield Road up Station Road. On leaving the
Old Town, before ascending the hill via Station Road and
on the corner of Gore Hill, (the road to Beaconsfield),
is Bury Farm.
Station Road is pleasant and distinguished at its lower
end by a group of houses up a steep lane called High and
Over which, in the 1930’s became an architectural
show-piece. At the top of the slope is the original white
concrete house also called “High and Over” with
its striking outlines, the first house in Britain to be
built incorporating the ideas of the famous French-Swiss
architect-Le Corbusier. A little higher up Station Road
on the left a footpath runs up between the gardens of
houses to emerge on the brow of a hill above Amersham,
where stands the Martyrs’ Memorial. This commemorates
not only the burning at the stake of the Amersham Lollard
martyrs in 1521, including William Tylesworth burned in
1506, but also other martyrs of the Chilterns. The Memorial
was for many years buried in the undergrowth but was restored
and cleaned in the 1950’s by the combined efforts
of the Amersham Society and the Protestant Alliance.
In the new part of Amersham there are good shops as well
as some fine examples of modern church architecture. Near
the station a complex of modern buildings includes the
Magistrates’ Courts, the offices of Amersham Town
Council, the Police Station, Community Centre and Leisure
Centre. This has been extended to provide a separate swimming
pool, flumes and diving pool together with gymnasium facilities
and climbing centre. A magnificent childrens playground
has been erected by the Town Council following a community
fundraising effort which realised £67,000. In 1987
new offices adjacent to the Police Station were opened
by H.R.H. the Princess Anne: these offices accommodate
not only Chiltern District Council but also Buckinghamshire
County Council Education and Social Services departments
serving the south of the county.
The shops are situated mainly in Sycamore Road, Hill Avenue
(leading to the station) and Woodside Road. This latter
road runs straight through to Blackhorse Bridge where
the road twists under the railway to join Stanley Hill
as it comes up from Chequers Hill.
At this point, a lane called Raans Road passes some new
light industrial development but after crossing a hump-backed
bridge over the branch railway line to Chesham becomes
a track leading to Raans Farm.
From the railway bridge White Lion Road runs left towards
little Chalfont just over a mile away. The road passes
the substantial premises of Amersham International PLC
which is making history in its own way by supplying radioactive
isotopes all over the world for peaceful application in
industry and particularly in medicine.
From Little Chalfont a road runs south to Chalfont St.
Giles, but turning right a short way along another road
remains within the Amersham boundary providing good views
across the Misbourne Valley. It passes by the well-known
Harewood Downs Golf Course, after which it drops gently
to the main A413 and so back via Chequers Hill into Amersham
Market Square.
The Millstream, Amersham (formerly a Corn Mill) is possibly
the site of one of three mills mentioned in the Domesday
Survey. In 1504, two mills were specifically mentioned
in the records as the Bury and Malt Mills, the former
obviously being the Millstream at Bury End. From the 1930’s
onwards until just a few years ago, it was a popular restaurant
where people came to wine and dine and view the River
Misbourne as it ran through at the side of the dance floor
before wending its way through the meadows to the Chalfonts.
It is now a most elegant fashion centre. |
|
Little
Chalfont |
| Little Chalfont as we know
it today developed in the 1920s, but previously was
essentially a group of long established farmhouses,
with names still familiar such as Snells, Cokes, Loudhams
and Lowndes, and around these farmhouses were clusters
of dwellings for the workers. These farmhouses and the
surrounding land were owned mainly by the Dukes of Bedford
or the Cavendish family (Lords of Chesham) and were
leased to the tenant farmers. By
far the most important property in the area was Beel
Park. The date of the present house is uncertain, the
deeds having been lost in the mid-18th Century, but
it is said that there was an early building dating from
the medieval times, and some of the outbuildings, such
as the present Beel House Nurseries, date from Elizabethan
times. During Henry VIII’s reign the estate was
owned by the Duke of Buckingham, a descendant of the
Mandeville family, which had acquired Amersham after
the Conquest. In the 17th Century Mary Pennington, mother
of Gulielma Springett, who married William Penn, the
prominent Quaker and founder of the State of Pennsylvania,
is believed to have lived in Beel House with her second
husband, Isaac Pennington. In the early 1800s the niece
of Lord Nelson resided in Beel House with her husband
Lt. Henry William Mason, High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire;
whilst later prominent tenants have included Mr A.A.
Lyle of Tate & Lyle Sugar Co., who came to live
in the House in 1911, and Sir Dirk Bogarde, the famous
actor, who purchased it in 1954.
One of the main clusters of dwellings, referred to earlier
on, was around the pond in Finch Lane. Among them are
‘The Piece’, dating from pre 1600 and ‘Bottle
Cottage’ dating from 1760, which at one time was
a blacksmith’s shop. The bottles built into the
outside wall are thought to be original, and according
to the Buckinghamshire County Council, there are only
three such cottages in the county, of which Finch Lane’s
is the best example.Whilst the menfolk were essentially
farmworkers, bodgers or workers in the Brick Yard, sited
where the Library and Village Hall now stand, the women
were engaged in the local cottagers’ crafts of
lace making or straw plaiting. The main road through
Little Chalfont is the A404, which roughly follows the
centuries old route from Amersham to Rickmansworth,
Watford and Hatfield, which was narrow and in bad repair.
By 1786 the Chenies to Amersham stretch of the Hatfield
to Reading road was so unusable that coaches simply
could not get through. Four Hundred trustees, lead by
the Cecil family of Hatfield House, and supported by
local dignitaries such as the Drake, Lowndes, Cavendish
and Mason families, presented a bill to Parliament and
an Act authorising a Turnpike Road was passed. The Marquess
of Salisbury of Hatfield House suffered badly from gout.
Every year in the social season he travelled to Bath
or Cheltenham in order to take the waters. To save him
the discomfort of travelling via London to the Great
West Road he favoured the building of a Turnpike Road
direct from Hatfield to Reading, to enable him to travel
in greater comfort. As a result this route became known
as ‘The Gout Track’. On the Eastern Green,
near Church Grove, Little Chalfont, an old mile post
still stands, giving the distances in miles to Hatfield,
Amersham and Reading. Opposite this milepost is a group
of houses known as Sheephouses. In 1796 one of these
houses is recorded as being a blacksmith’s shop,
serving traffic on the Turnpike Road. For many years
the other cottages were used as an overnight stopping
place for sheep and cattle drovers on their way to and
from Watford market.
The Metropolitan Railway reached the area in July 1889
and the station known as Chalfont Road was officially
opened, but in 1915 the name was changed to the present
name of Chalfont & Latimer Station. Development
of the village commenced in early 1922 and Village Way
became the first complete residential development. After
a period the residents applied to Chalfont St. Giles
Parish Council to change the name of the area and the
Parish Minute Book, dated 15th January 1925, records:-
‘That the Council agree the request of the inhabitants
of Chalfont Station Village for it to be renamed LITTLE
Chalfont’. The Bucks Examiner, in their issue of
30th January 1925 confirmed the request of the residents
and:- The sanction of the Director General of the Ordnance
Survey that in future it will be known as LITTLE Chalfont.
From then onwards the village steadily developed supported
by strong publicity with the slogan:-’Come and
Live in Metroland’. Today with a population approaching
7000 it is anticipated that, with the discipline of
the Green Belt Policy, the numbers and development may
stabilise at this level. |
|
|
|
