Farnham Royal 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 authorit ...

within Buckinghamshire, England. It is in the south of the county, immediately north of Slough (with which it is contiguous), and around 22 miles west of Charing Cross, Central London. Within the

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one o ...

boundary is the village of Farnham Common and the

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...

of Farnham Park.

History

The village name 'Farnham' is Anglo Saxon in origin, and means 'homestead where ferns grow'. In the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manus ...

of 1086 the village was recorded as ''Ferneham''. The affix or suffix 'Royal' was given to the village in the late 11th century by the

king King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...

, who gave the

lord of the manor Lord of the Manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England, referred to the landholder of a rural estate. The lord enjoyed manorial rights (the rights to establish and occupy a residence, known as the manor house and demesne) as well as seig ...

of Farnham,

Bertram de Verdun Bertram de Verdun was the name of several members of the Norman family of de Verdun, native to the Avranchin. According to the historian Mark Hagger, the de Verdun family lived originally in Normandy where they held land, and after the Norman c ...

, the Grand Serjeanty on the condition of providing a glove and putting it on the king's right hand at the

coronation A coronation is the act of placement or bestowal of a crown upon a monarch's head. The term also generally refers not only to the physical crowning but to the whole ceremony wherein the act of crowning occurs, along with the presentation of ot ...

, and supporting his right arm, while the Royal

sceptre A sceptre is a staff or wand held in the hand by a ruling monarch as an item of royal or imperial insignia. Figuratively, it means royal or imperial authority or sovereignty. Antiquity Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia The '' Was'' and other ...

was in his hand (see also Manor of Worksop). In 1832, Francis Osborne was created '' Baron Godolphin, of Farnham Royal in the County of Buckingham''. From 1952 to 1957,

Barnardo's Barnardo's is a British charity founded by Thomas John Barnardo in 1866, to care for vulnerable children. As of 2013, it raised and spent around £200 million each year running around 900 local services, aimed at helping these same group ...

operated a home for girls at Long Close on Black Pond Lane.

Amenities

The two largest categories of land use are green space which is forest or golf course (Burnham Beeches which has a hotel and café) and secondly domestic gardens which accounted for 34% of land use as at the 2011 census. At a focal point of the developed village hub, on the site of two mini-roundabouts, stood the old water pump, removed in the 1970s to a museum. Just after 2000 the water pump was brought back is on the green nearby, next to ''the Duke's Head'' pub. Farnham Park National Baseball & Softball Complex, the UK's only purpose-built baseball and softball facility, is also located within Farnham Park Playing Fields, and is operated by BaseballSoftballUK.

Demography

At the 2001 UK census, Farnham Royal's ethnicity was 92.9% white, 1.3% mixed race, 5% Asian, 0.4% black and 0.4% other. The place of birth of residents was 87.7% United Kingdom, 1.2% Republic of Ireland, 2.6% other Western European countries, and 8.5% elsewhere. Religion was recorded as 75.7% Christian, 0.3% Buddhist, 1.3% Hindu, 1.4% Sikh, 0.5% Jewish, and 1.1% Muslim. 12.7% were recorded as having no religion, 0.2% had an alternative religion and 6.8% did not state their religion. The economic activity of residents aged 16–74 was 39% in full-time employment, 11% in part-time employment, 14.4% self-employed, 1.7% unemployed, 2.2% students with jobs, 2.7% students without jobs, 16.9% retired, 8.2% looking after home or family, 2% permanently sick or disabled and 2% economically inactive for other reasons. The industry of employment of residents was 15.4% retail, 13% manufacturing, 4.5% construction, 24.8% real estate, 8.4% health and social work, 7.6% education, 8% transport and communications, 2.9% public administration, 3.7% hotels and restaurants, 3.9% finance, 0.7% agriculture and 7.1% other. Compared with national figures, the ward had a relatively high proportion of workers in real estate, transport and communications. According to

Office for National Statistics The Office for National Statistics (ONS; cy, Swyddfa Ystadegau Gwladol) is the executive office of the UK Statistics Authority, a non-ministerial department which reports directly to the UK Parliament. Overview The ONS is responsible for t ...

estimates, during the period of April 2001 to March 2002 the average gross weekly income of households was £1,070, compared with an average of £660 in

South East England South East England is one of the nine official regions of England at the first level of ITL for statistical purposes. It consists of the counties of Buckinghamshire, East Sussex, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Kent, Oxfordshire, Berkshi ...

. Of the ward's residents aged 16–74, 34% had a

higher education Higher education is tertiary education leading to award of an academic degree. Higher education, also called post-secondary education, third-level or tertiary education, is an optional final stage of formal learning that occurs after comple ...

qualification or the equivalent, compared with 19.9% nationwide.

Education

The private boys preparatory school Caldicott School has alumni including deputy prime minister

Nick Clegg Sir Nicholas William Peter Clegg (born 7 January 1967) is a British media executive and former Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom who has been president for global affairs at Meta Platforms since 2022, having previously been vicep ...

and England cricket captain

Andrew Strauss Sir Andrew John Strauss (born 2 March 1977) is an English cricket administrator and former player, formerly the Director of Cricket for the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). He played county cricket for Middlesex, and captained the Englan ...

References

External links

{{authority control Villages in Buckinghamshire Civil parishes in Buckinghamshire