Ivinghoe, Buckinghamshire Family History Guide

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

Other places in the parish include: the hamlets of Aston, St. Margaret’s, and Ringshall, and parts of the hamlets Seabrook, Horton, and Nettleden.

Parish church:

Parish registers begin: 1559

Nonconformists include: Strict Baptist, Wesleyan Methodist, and Wesleyan Methodist Reform.

Table of Contents

Adjacent Parishes

Parish History

The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales 1870

IVINGHOE, a small town, a parish, and a sub-district in the district of Leighton-Buzzard, and county of Buck ingham. The town stands on the E border of the county on Icknield street, under the Chiltern hills, near the Northwestern railway and the Grand Junction canal, 2 miles SSE of Cheddington Junction r. station, and 3½ NNE of Tring.

The church dates from the time of Edward IV.; is a fine cruciform structure, with central tower and low spire; and contains a neat font, a richly carved oak pulpit, several monuments of the Duncombes, and an altartomb with recumbent effigies, long supposed to be for Bishop Henry de Blois, brother of King Stephen, but now believed to be for Peter de Chaceport, rector of Ivinghoe in the 13th century. A weekly market is held on Saturday; cattle fairs are held on 6 May and 17 Oct and the plaiting of straw is carried on.

The parish contains also the hamlets of Aston, St. Margaret’s, and Ringshall, and parts of the hamlets Seabrook, Horton, and Nettleden. Acres, 5, 260. Real property, inclusive of the remaining parts of Seabrook, Horton, and Nettleden, £8,766. Rated property, exclusive of these parts, £6,375. Pop. in 1851, 2,024; in 1861, 1,849. Houses, 354. The property is not much divided. A lawn belonging to Earl Brownlow, and extending from the town towards Pitstone, has a very fine appearance..

The view from the hills above the town is picturesque. A small Benedictine nunnery at St. Margaret’s, now traceable by only some inequalities in the ground, is commonly said to have been founded in 1160, by Bishop Henry de Blois, but appears really to have been founded by his successor, Bishop Giffard of Winchester. An old rhyming tradition says, respecting one of the Hampdens and the Black Prince,

Tring, Wing, and Ivinghoe
Hampden of Hampden did forego,
For striking of ye Prince a blow,
And glad he might escapen so.

But neither the manor of Ivinghoe, nor that of Wing, nor that of Tring ever belonged to the Hampdens; so that the tradition is a mistake. Yet it has become memorable for furnishing, to Sir Walter Scott, the name “Ivanhoe” to one of the best of his novels.

The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Oxford. Value, £300. Patron Earl Brownlow. There are Wesleyan chapels in Aston and Horton.

The sub-district contains also Cheddington parish. Acres, 6, 658. Pop., 2, 477. Houses, 473.

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