Kingswood is a

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 30 dwellings on the South side of the A41 from

Waddesdon Waddesdon is a village in Buckinghamshire, England, west-north-west of Aylesbury on the A41 road. The village also includes the hamlets of Eythrope and Wormstone, Waddesdon was an agricultural settlement with milling, silk weaving and lace maki ...

Bicester Bicester ( ) is a historical market towngarden town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Cherwell (district), Cherwell district of northeastern Oxfordshire in Southern England that also comprises an Eco-towns, eco town at North Wes ...

and between the

villages A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

of Ludgershall and

Grendon Underwood Grendon Underwood is a village and civil parish in west Buckinghamshire, England, near the border with Oxfordshire. The village sits between Woodham and Edgcott, near the Roman road Akeman Street (now part of the A41), and around north-west o ...

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. Kingswood is also a civil

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 or m ...

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. Parish matters are currently administered via a

parish meeting A parish meeting, in England, is a meeting to which all the electors in a civil parish are entitled to attend. In some cases, where a parish or group of parishes has fewer than 200 electors, the parish meeting can take on the role of a parish cou ...

. There is one Italian restaurant and public house, Canaletto which opened in 2013. There is also a derelict Village Hall blown down in the Great Storm of 1987.

Etymology

The hamlet name refers to the nearby Bernwood Forest, an ancient Royal hunting forest.

Description

The houses within the hamlet form part of a larger community encompassing a further 30 dwellings within adjoining parishes and includes a burial ground, another public house, The Cook and Fillet and a Mission Hall at the crossroads built around 1850 and left in trust in 1905 by

Henry Grattan Guinness Henry Grattan Guinness (11 August 1835 – 21 June 1910) was an Irish Protestant Christian preacher, evangelist and author. He was the great evangelist of the Third Evangelical awakening and preached during the Ulster Revival of 1859 which dre ...

(1835–1910) for the salvation or edification of souls. There is a

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle of ...

Ham Home-cum-Hamgreen Woods Ham Home-cum-Hamgreen Woods is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest in Kingswood near Grendon Underwood in Buckinghamshire. It is composed of two separate areas, Ham Home Wood and Hamgreen Wood, and is a small part of the formerly ...

History

The old Roman Akeman Street was the main route to Cirencester, Cheltenham and Bath and the Crooked Billet an important

coaching inn The coaching inn (also coaching house or staging inn) was a vital part of Europe's inland transport infrastructure until the development of the railway, providing a resting point ( layover) for people and horses. The inn served the needs of tra ...

/ staging post. The original trustees of the Mission Hall were William Kirby, Sydney Hopcroft, James & John Taylor and William Wellings; and adjoining land then owned by Amy Wellings on one side and William Daniels on the other.
Henry Grattan Guinness established the East London Training Institute for Home and Foreign Missions in Stepney Green in 1873, across the road from the Mission Hall of his friend,

Thomas Barnardo Thomas John Barnardo (4 July 184519 September 1905) was an Irish-born philanthropist and founder and director of homes for poor and deprived children. From the foundation of the first Barnardo's home in 1867 to the date of Barnardo's death, ne ...

and moved to larger premises in Harley House in Bow later in that year. The institute was interdenominational and international, opening its own missions in Congo (1878), Peru (1897), India (1899), Borneo (1948), Nepal (1954), and Irian Jaya (1957). Present day Latin Link descends from the Peru mission.

Railway

In the late 19th century the

Brill Tramway The Brill Tramway, also known as the Quainton Tramway, Wotton Tramway, Oxford & Aylesbury Tramroad and Metropolitan Railway Brill Branch, was a six-mile (10 km) rail line in the Aylesbury Vale, Buckinghamshire, England. It was privately b ...

had a spur to Kingswood.
1871-04-01 Wotton to Quainton Road opened otton Tramway
1871-08-19 Wood Siding to Wotton opened otton Tramway
1871-11- Brill to Wood Siding opened otton Tramway
1871-11- Wood Siding, Church Siding
1872-01- Wotton, Westcott, Waddesdon Road, Quainton Road (Wotton Tramway)
1872-04- Brill
1891-07-01 Verney Junction to Aylesbury started etropolitan Akeman Street station

1892-09-01 Aylesbury to Amersham opened The Metropolitan extended its route north from Baker Street through Harrow and Rickmansworth to Aylesbury and bought out the Aylesbury & Buckingham Railway from Aylesbury via Quainton Road to Verney Junction - and took over the operation of the Wotton Tramway from Quainton Road to Brill. At the same time Manchester, Sheffield, & Lincolnshire Railway extended its main line south to meet the Metropolitan at Quainton Road and then ran along the latter to Finchley Road, where it diverged west to a separate terminus at Marylebone. Therefore, it seems that in the latter half of the 1800s Kingswood was not only on the main coaching route to Cirencester, Cheltenham and Bath but also right in the middle of great infrastructure developments linking it to major hubs North and South. This could explain why such an eminent person as Henry Grattan Guinness decided to site his only known UK chapel in Kingswood.

Tetchwick

Within Kingswood parish is the

of Tetchwick, located to the south west of the main village on a spar road off the main A41.

References

{{Authority control Hamlets in Buckinghamshire Civil parishes in Buckinghamshire