Penn, Buckinghamshire
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Penn 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 ...
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, about north-west of
Beaconsfield Beaconsfield ( ) is a market town and civil parish within the unitary authority of Buckinghamshire, England, west-northwest of central London and south-southeast of Aylesbury. Three other towns are within : Gerrards Cross, Amersham and High W ...
and east of
High Wycombe High Wycombe, often referred to as Wycombe ( ), is a market town in Buckinghamshire, England. Lying in the valley of the River Wye surrounded by the Chiltern Hills, it is west-northwest of Charing Cross in London, south-southeast of Ayl ...
. The parish's cover Penn village and the hamlets of Penn Street, Knotty Green, Forty Green and
Winchmore Hill Winchmore Hill is a suburb and electoral ward in the Borough of Enfield, North London, in the N21 postal district. With the Winchmore Hill conservation area as a focal point, the district is bounded on the east by Green Lanes (the A105 road ...
. The population was estimated at 4,168 in 2019.


History

The name is Brythonic in origin, comparable with the modern
Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...
typonym ''pen'', and may mean "hill top" or "end". Penn stands on a strong
promontory A promontory is a raised mass of land that projects into a lowland or a body of water (in which case it is a peninsula). Most promontories either are formed from a hard ridge of rock that has resisted the erosive forces that have removed the so ...
of the
Chiltern Hills The Chiltern Hills is a chalk escarpment in England. The area, northwest of London, covers stretching from Goring-on-Thames in the southwest to Hitchin in the northeast - across Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, and Bedfordshire. ...
. From the tower of
Holy Trinity The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the central dogma concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God the F ...
Parish Church, it is claimed to be possible to see into several other counties.


The Penn family

Segraves Manor, the principal seat in Penn, belonged to the Penn family. Sybil Penn, wife of David, was dry nurse and foster mother to
King Edward VI Edward VI (12 October 1537 – 6 July 1553) was King of England and Ireland from 28 January 1547 until his death in 1553. He was crowned on 20 February 1547 at the age of nine. Edward was the son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour and the first E ...
and Lady of the Bed Chamber to his sister,
Queen Elizabeth I Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen". El ...
. Penn Estate directly benefited from the Slave Compensation Act of 1837. The family owned two plantations in Jamaica and a total of 210 individuals split between the Clarendon and the Oak plantations. The estate was awarded a total of 4095 pounds, the equivalent of half a million pound today. The Penn family of Penn were not known to be related to
William Penn William Penn ( – ) was an English writer and religious thinker belonging to the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, a North American colony of England. He was an early advocate of democracy a ...
(after whose father, Admiral Sir William Penn,
Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
is named), whose family came from Wiltshire. In 1735 the manor of Penn passed from the unmarried Roger Penn to his sole heir and sister, who was married to the 3rd Baronet Scarsdale, an ancestor of the Lords Curzon. Penbury Grove House was built in 1902 by the American engineer
Horace Field Parshall Horace Field Parshall (9 September 1865–12 December 1932) was an electrical engineer specialising in rotating electrical machines, railway traction, and electrical distribution. Born in America, he worked for General Electric, later moving ...
as a replica of
Pennsbury Manor Pennsbury Manor is the colonial estate of William Penn, founder and proprietor of the Colony of Pennsylvania, who lived there from 1699 to 1701. He left it and returned to England in 1701, where he died penniless in 1718. Following his departur ...
, William Penn's house in Pennsylvania, Field wrongly thinking that these Penns shared a connection with Pennsylvania.


Myth

Penn is reputedly haunted by the ghost of an 18th-century farm labourer, who appears laughing, on a phantom horse.


Commons and sports

Penn Street, Knotty Green and Forty Green are hamlets in the parish, each within a mile of the main village. Penn Street and Knotty Green have village commons, where the Penn Street and Knotty Green cricket clubs play. The local
public house A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...
s, The Squirrel in Penn Street and The Red Lion in Knotty Green, face their respective commons. Forty Green also has a pub – The Royal Standard of England. Penn has a non-League football club, Penn & Tylers Green F.C., which plays at Elm Road.


Penn today

The area is part of the Chiltern Hills and popular with people who commute to London due to its proximity to road junction 3 of the M40 motorway at Loudwater, mainline rail at
Beaconsfield Beaconsfield ( ) is a market town and civil parish within the unitary authority of Buckinghamshire, England, west-northwest of central London and south-southeast of Aylesbury. Three other towns are within : Gerrards Cross, Amersham and High W ...
and
London Underground The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or by its nickname the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent ceremonial counties of England, counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and He ...
at
Amersham Amersham ( ) is a market town and civil parish within the unitary authority of Buckinghamshire, England, in the Chiltern Hills, northwest of central London, from Aylesbury and from High Wycombe. Amersham is part of the London commuter belt. ...
, both linked with the city. Penn remains home to
Earl Howe Earl Howe is a title that has been created twice in British history, for members of the Howe and Curzon-Howe family respectively. The first creation, in the Peerage of Great Britain, was in 1788 for Richard Howe, but became extinct on his ...
of the Penn-Curzon-Howe dynasty, which gained more wealth through the
Inclosure Acts The Inclosure Acts, which use an archaic spelling of the word now usually spelt "enclosure", cover enclosure of open fields and common land in England and Wales, creating legal property rights to land previously held in common. Between 1604 and 1 ...
, which gave legal property rights to land previously in communal use. In 1855, ownership of Common Wood and Penn Wood passed to the 1st Earl Howe, forcing many local people and their livestock off the land. This caused general unrest within the community. For centuries, villagers had sustained themselves by grazing their animals on the common and gathering what they could from the land. When the woods became private property, many were plunged further into poverty. Years of unlawful protest followed, when poaching was rife and fences were pulled down as local people tried to retrieve what they deemed legitimately theirs. Penn Street churchyard contains items from
Gopsall Gopsall (or Gopsall Park) is a former civil parish, now in the parish of Twycross, in the Hinckley and Bosworth district, in the county of Leicestershire, England. It is located between the villages of Appleby Magna, Shackerstone, Twycross and ...
, Lord Howe's other country house in
Leicestershire Leicestershire ( ; postal abbreviation Leics.) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East Midlands, England. The county borders Nottinghamshire to the north, Lincolnshire to the north-east, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire t ...
. The
lychgate A lychgate, also spelled lichgate, lycugate, lyke-gate or as two separate words lych gate, (from Old English ''lic'', corpse), also ''wych gate'', is a gateway covered with a roof found at the entrance to a traditional English or English-style ch ...
and Countess Howe memorial were moved from
Congerstone Congerstone () is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Shackerstone, in the Hinckley and Bosworth district, in Leicestershire, England.OS Explorer Map 232 : Nuneaton & Tamworth: (1:25 000) : It is three miles north west of Mar ...
in 1919, when the family sold the
Gopsall Gopsall (or Gopsall Park) is a former civil parish, now in the parish of Twycross, in the Hinckley and Bosworth district, in the county of Leicestershire, England. It is located between the villages of Appleby Magna, Shackerstone, Twycross and ...
Estate.


In popular culture

The Cottage Bookshop in Penn was one location in "A Tale of Two Hamlets", an episode of the
ITV ITV or iTV may refer to: ITV *Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of: ** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...
television programme, ''
Midsomer Murders ''Midsomer Murders'' is a British crime drama television series, adapted by Anthony Horowitz and Douglas Watkinson from the novels in the '' Chief Inspector Barnaby'' book series (created by Caroline Graham), and broadcast on two channels of I ...
''. It was also used to film an episode called " Bookshop Chuckles" in the children's television show, ''
ChuckleVision ''ChuckleVision'' is a British children's comedy television series created by Martin Hughes and the Chuckle Brothers for the BBC. It starred Barry and Paul Elliott as the Chuckle Brothers and occasionally their older brothers, Jimmy, and Brian ...
'', and the three-acre set for ''
Nanny McPhee ''Nanny McPhee'' is a 2005 comedy drama fantasy film based on the Nurse Matilda character by Christianna Brand. It was directed by Kirk Jones, coproduced by StudioCanal, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, Working Title Films, Three Strange Angel ...
'' was constructed there.


Notable people

*The novelist
Elizabeth Taylor Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor (February 27, 1932 – March 23, 2011) was a British-American actress. She began her career as a child actress in the early 1940s and was one of the most popular stars of classical Hollywood cinema in the 1950s. ...
died in Penn in 1975. *Medical pioneers Dr
Louisa Garrett Anderson Louisa Garrett Anderson, CBE (28 July 1873 – 15 November 1943) was a medical pioneer, a member of the Women's Social and Political Union, a suffragette, and social reformer. She was the daughter of the founding medical pioneer Elizabeth Gar ...
(1873–1943), her partner Dr
Flora Murray Flora Murray (8 May 1869 – 28 July 1923)Flora Murray
findagrave.com
was a Scottish medical pioneer, ...
and the children's writer Alison Uttley, author of the Little Grey Rabbit stories, are buried in the churchyard of Holy Trinity. *The actor and singer
Stanley Holloway Stanley Augustus Holloway (1 October 1890 – 30 January 1982) was an English actor, comedian, singer and monologist. He was famous for his comic and character roles Stanley Holloway on stage and screen, on stage and screen, especially t ...
lived in Penn with his wife and son for many years in the 1950s and 1960s. *The countertenor
Michael Chance Michael Chance CBE (born in Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom 7 March 1955) is an English countertenor and the founder and Artistic Director of The Grange Festival. Chance was born in Penn, Buckinghamshire, into a musical family. After growing u ...
was born in the village. *The renowned Scottish preacher
Alexander Whyte ''For the British colonial administrator, see Alexander Frederick Whyte'' Rev Alexander Whyte D.D.,LL.D. (13 January 18366 January 1921) was a Scottish divine. He was Moderator of the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland in 1898. ...
(1836–1921) spent his last months in the village and preached his last sermon at the Free Methodist Chapel in Church Road. *
Thomas Horder, 1st Baron Horder Thomas Jeeves Horder, 1st Baron Horder, (7 January 1871 – 13 August 1955) was a British physician best known for his appointments as physician-in-ordinary to Kings Edward VII, Georges V and VI, and extra physician to Queen Elizabeth II. He ...
, physician to the Royal Family (as was
Bertrand Dawson, 1st Viscount Dawson of Penn Bertrand Edward Dawson, 1st Viscount Dawson of Penn, (9 March 1864 – 7 March 1945) was a physician to the British Royal Family and President of the Royal College of Physicians from 1931 to 1937. He is known for his responsibility in the deat ...
, who chose the village for the territorial designation of his peerage) lived in the village for several years. *David Blakely, murdered by Ruth Ellis, lived on Hammersley Lane with his parents. Ellis was the last woman to be judicially executed in Britain. *Canadian author
Margaret Laurence Jean Margaret Laurence (née Wemyss; July 18, 1926 – January 5, 1987) was a Canadian novelist and short story writer, and is one of the major figures in Canadian literature. She was also a founder of the Writers' Trust of Canada, a non-pr ...
(1926–1987) lived in Elm Cottage on Beacon Hill in 1963–1973. It had been previously owned by the politician Sir Donald Maclean and Lady Maclean, parents of the
Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
spy Donald Maclean.


References


External links


Penn and Tyler's Green Community and Village website
– run by the Penn & Tylers Green Residents' Society – this site contains news, events, photos and a village map and articles.
Penn and Tylers Green FC
{{authority control Villages in Buckinghamshire Civil parishes in Buckinghamshire