Woodham 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 ...

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 ...

about west of

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 ...

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 ...

. At the 2011 Census the population of the hamlet was included in the civil parish of Kingswood. The

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 "home near a wood", referring to its proximity to the ancient

Bernwood Forest Bernwood Forest was one of several forests of the ancient Kingdom of England and was a Royal hunting forest. It is thought to have been set aside as Royal hunting land when the Anglo-Saxon kings had a palace at Brill and church in Oakley, in th ...

. Woodham is on the ancient

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 ...

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 ...

, which since the 1920s has been classified as the A41. In 1906 the

Great Central Railway The Great Central Railway in England was formed when the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway changed its name in 1897, anticipating the opening in 1899 of its London Extension. On 1 January 1923, the company was grouped into the ...

built a line through the parish and opened

Akeman Street railway station Akeman Street was a railway station at Woodham, Buckinghamshire, where the railway linking Ashendon Junction and Grendon Underwood Junction crossed the Akeman Street Roman road (now the A41 road). History The station was opened by the Great C ...

where it crossed the main road at Woodham. The station had a short working life, being closed by the GCR's successor the

London and North Eastern Railway The London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) was the second largest (after LMS) of the " Big Four" railway companies created by the Railways Act 1921 in Britain. It operated from 1 January 1923 until nationalisation on 1 January 1948. At th ...

in 1930.

References

Hamlets in Buckinghamshire Civil parishes in Buckinghamshire {{Buckinghamshire-geo-stub