Drayton Beauchamp (pronounced 'Beecham') is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

within

Aylesbury Vale The Aylesbury Vale (or Vale of Aylesbury) is a geographical region in Buckinghamshire, England, which is bounded by the Borough of Milton Keynes and South Northamptonshire to the north, Central Bedfordshire and the Borough of Dacorum ( Hertfor ...

district in

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-ea ...

, England. It is in the east of the county bordering

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...

, about six miles from

Aylesbury Aylesbury ( ) is the county town of Buckinghamshire, South East England. It is home to the Roald Dahl Children's Gallery, David Tugwell`s house on Watermead and the Waterside Theatre. It is in central Buckinghamshire, midway between High Wy ...

and two miles from

Tring Tring is a market town and civil parish in the Borough of Dacorum, Hertfordshire, England. It is situated in a gap passing through the Chiltern Hills, classed as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, from Central London. Tring is linked to ...

History

The village

toponym Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of '' toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage and types. Toponym is the general term for a proper name of ...

is derived from the

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

for "farm where sledges are used". It is a common place name in England, and refers to places that were perched on the hillside, thus requiring the use of a sledge rather than a cart to pull heavy loads. The suffix 'Beauchamp' refers to the ancient

manorial Manorialism, also known as the manor system or manorial system, was the method of land ownership (or "tenure") in parts of Europe, notably France and later England, during the Middle Ages. Its defining features included a large, sometimes forti ...

family of the parish. The village is intersected by the

Icknield Way The Icknield Way is an ancient trackway in southern and eastern England that runs from Norfolk to Wiltshire. It follows the chalk escarpment that includes the Berkshire Downs and Chiltern Hills. Background It is generally said to be, wi ...

a prehistoric, long-distance trackway of significant importance in providing a trading route between

East Anglia East Anglia is an area in the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, a people whose name originated in Anglia, in ...

and the

Thames Valley The Thames Valley is an informally-defined sub-region of South East England, centred on the River Thames west of London, with Oxford as a major centre. Its boundaries vary with context. The area is a major tourist destination and economic hub, ...

certainly during the

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...

and maybe earlier. In more recent times it has been bisected by the

Roman Road Roman roads ( la, viae Romanae ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, and were built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Re ...

Akeman Street Akeman Street is a Roman road in southern England between the modern counties of Hertfordshire and Gloucestershire. It is approximately long and runs roughly east–west. Akeman Street linked Watling Street just north of Verulamium (near mode ...

now the A41 and by both the

Arm and

Wendover Wendover is a market town and civil parish at the foot of the Chiltern Hills in Buckinghamshire, England. It is situated at the point where the main road across the Chilterns between London and Aylesbury intersects with the once important road a ...

Arm of the

Grand Union Canal The Grand Union Canal in England is part of the British canal system. It is the principal navigable waterway between London and the Midlands. Starting in London, one arm runs to Leicester and another ends in Birmingham, with the latter st ...

. Following the

Norman conquest of England The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Normans, Norman, Duchy of Brittany, Breton, County of Flanders, Flemish, and Kingdom of France, French troops, ...

William I William I; ang, WillelmI (Bates ''William the Conqueror'' p. 33– 9 September 1087), usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes William the Bastard, was the first Norman king of England, reigning from 1066 until his death in 1087 ...

awarded land which later became known as Drayton Beauchamp to Robert, Earl of Morton who as Magno le Breton had accompanied William at the time of the Norman Invasion in 1066. The Morton family founded a church at Drayton on the site where the present-day church of St Mary the Virgin now stands. During the early part of the 13th century the manor was owned by William de Beauchamp (de Bello Campo). The lands were passed from the Beauchamp family to the Cobhams. Sir John Cobham gave the property to King

Edward III Edward III (13 November 1312 – 21 June 1377), also known as Edward of Windsor before his accession, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from January 1327 until his death in 1377. He is noted for his military success and for restoring r ...

. The King granted it to his shield-bearer

Thomas Cheney Sir Thomas Cheney (or Cheyne) KG (c. 1485 – 16 December 1558) of the Blackfriars, City of London and Shurland, Isle of Sheppey, Kent, was an English administrator and diplomat, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports in south-east England from 1 ...

(also spelt Cheyne) in 1364. It remained in the Cheyne family until the death of William Cheyne, Lord

Viscount Newhaven Viscount Newhaven was a title in the Peerage of Scotland. It was created 17 May 1681 for Charles Cheyne (or Cheyney), a Member of Parliament and Clerk of the Pipe. He was made Lord Cheyne at the same time, also in the Peerage of Scotland. He m ...

in 1728. During the period after 1066 in which the Lord of the Manor of Drayton was Magno le Breton the southern end of the manor would have been valued for its summer pasture. This area which became known later as

Cholesbury Cholesbury (recorded as Chelwardisbyry in the 13th century) is a village in Buckinghamshire, England, on the border with Hertfordshire. It is situated in the Chiltern Hills, about east of Wendover, north of Chesham and from Berkhamsted. Ch ...

contained a large

Hillfort A hillfort is a type of earthwork used as a fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze Age or Iron Age. Some were used in the post-Roma ...

. This gradually became a permanent settlement and was subsequently separated off as a separate manor. In 1541 it was sold by Robert Cheyne to Chief Justice John Baldwin and became an autonomous manor. Drayton Beauchamp was sold by the Cheyne family to John Gumley in 1728 for £22,200 and in 1788 the Lordship of the Manor was inherited by Lady Robert Manners. The manor house beside the church had been demolished around 1760 and a new one built elsewhere in the parish by the Gumleys. In 1835 the Lordship of the Manor passed to Mrs. Caroline Jenney and remained in that family until the death of Miss Airmyne Harpur-Crewe in 1999. The parish church was extensively rebuilt in the 15th century from materials salvaged from an earlier church. Most notable is the Norman font which dates back to the 12th century. The first rector of the new Church was

Richard Hooker Richard Hooker (25 March 1554 – 2 November 1600) was an English priest in the Church of England and an influential theologian.The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church by F. L. Cross (Editor), E. A. Livingstone (Editor) Oxford University ...

who took up his incumbency in 1584. Richard is today remembered for his writings in particular a four-volume work known as '' Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie''. The church was again restored in 1867'Parishes: Drayton Beauchamp', A History of the County of Buckingham: Volume 3 (1925), pp. 341–345. URL
Date accessed: 2 December 2010
/ref> when the rector was the naturalist, Henry Harpur Crewe. In 1934 Drayton Beauchamp ceded a small parcel of land, adjacent to the previously detached parish of Cholesbury to the new parish of

Cholesbury-cum-St Leonards Cholesbury-cum-St Leonards is a civil parish in the Chiltern district of the English county of Buckinghamshire. It lies in the Chiltern Hills just to the north of Chesham, on the boundary with Hertfordshire. It comprises the hamlet of Buckla ...

References

External links

St Mary the VirginBritish History Online – Victoria County History of Buckinghamshire: Volume 3 – Drayton Beauchamp
{{authority control Villages in Buckinghamshire Civil parishes in Buckinghamshire

History

References

Further reading

External links