High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire Family History Guide

High Wycombe is an Ancient Parish and a market town in the county of Buckinghamshire.

Other places in the parish include: Wycombe Marsh, Wycombe, and Tylers Green.

Alternative names:

Chepping Wycombe
Chipping Wycombe

Parish church:

Parish registers begin:

Parish registers: 1610
Bishop’s Transcripts: 1590

Nonconformists include: Baptist, Independent/Congregational, Particular Baptist, Primitive Methodist, Society of Friends/Quaker, Strict Baptist, Wesleyan Methodist, and Wesleyan Methodist Reform.

Table of Contents

Adjacent Parishes

Parish History

HIGH WYCOMBE QUEENS SQUARE BUCKINGHAMSHIRE

HIGH WYCOMBE OXFORD STREET BUCKINGHAMSHIRE

HIGH WYCOMBE FROGMOOR GARDENS BUCKINGHAMSHIRE 1905

HIGH WYCOMBE FUNERAL PROCESSION OF THE LATE REV OAKLEY 1905

Flackwell Heath near Loudwater High Wycombe 1908

The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales 1870

WYCOMBE, a town, a parish, a sub-district, and a district, in Bucks. The town stands on the river Wye, and on the Maidenhead, Thame, and Oxford railway, 25 miles ESE of Oxford; is properly called High W. or Chipping W.; dates from ancient British times; was reconstructed by the Romans; has yielded many Roman relics; includes, at its E end, a large Roman station, recently excavated; proves its antiquity also by the existence of an ancient British fort adjacent to the station, and of a fine Roman fort on Castle Hill, adjacent to the church.

It belonged to Editha, queen of the Confessor; passed to R. D’Oilly and others, and back to the Crown; went afterwards in portions to the Bassets, the Viponts, the Marshalls, the Bohuns, and others; was given, by Edward IV., to the chapter of Windsor; was occupied by the parliamentarians in the civil wars of Charles I., and attacked by Prince Rupert; numbers, among its natives, Bishop Basset, who died in 1258, Bishop Alley the Bible translator, Butler the author of “Female Monarchy,’’ the theologian R. Taverner, the royalist R. Chalfont, and Lord Mayor Monday.

It gives the titles of Baron and Earl to the Marquis of Lansdowne; sent two members to parliament from the time of Edward I. till 1867, and was then reduced to the right of sending only one; had, as parliamentary representatives, the poet Waller, Sir E. Verney, and the Regicide, T. Scott; was first chartered by Henry III., and is governed, under the new act, by a mayor, 4 aldermen, and 12 councillors.

It is parliamentarily conterminate with W. parish, but municipally comprises only 120 acres; is a seat of petty sessions and county courts, and the headquarters of the county militia; publishes two weekly newspapers; carries on chair-making, paper-making, and some lace, straw-plait, and bonnet-making; occupies a pleasant site on both sides of the Wye, surrounded by beach-covered hills.

It consists chiefly of one long spacious street, with several minor streets; was recently enlarged, at the W end, by the formation of new streets on new ground; had anciently several churches, chapels, and monastic establishments, which were destroyed at the Reformation.

It now has a head post-office, a r. station with telegraph, three banking offices, two chief inns, a stone-pillared town hall of 1757, octagonal shambles of 1761, a large cruciform early English-church, with a tower of 1755, a handsome Independent chapel in the Romanesque style, another Independent chapel built in 1714 and restored and enlarged in 1865, three Baptist chapels, a Quakers’ chapel, three Methodist chapels, a literary institute, a mechanics’ institute, an endowed grammar-school with £291 a year, handsome national schools of 1855, a British school, three suites of alms houses, some general charities, a weekly market on Friday, and two annual fairs.

Acres of the p. borough, 6,318. Real property, £26,959; of which £275 are in gasworks. Electors in 1833, 298; in 1863, 478. Pop. of the m. borough in 1851, 3,588; in 1861, 4,221. Houses, 826. Pop. of the p. borough in 1851, 7,179; in 1861, 8,373. Houses, 1,703.

The parish, though conterminate with the p. borough, contains the hamlets of Hazlemere, Tylers-Green, and Loudwater; and includes chapelries of the same names, and another called Wycombe-Marsh, all separately noticed. W. Abbey is the seat of Lord Carrington. The parochial living is a vicarage in the diocese of Oxford. Value, £480. Patron, the Marquis of Lansdowne.

Source: The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales [Wilson, John M]. A. Fullarton & Co. N. d. c. [1870-72].