Ashendon is a small 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 ...

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-e ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

. It is about nine miles 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 ...

and seven miles north of Thame. 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 settlers in the mid-5th ...

for "Hill overgrown with ash trees". 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 manusc ...

of 1086 records the village as the property of the Grenville family; it was called ''Assedune''. The original name refers to the fact that in

Saxon The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic * * * * peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...

times this area was forested, serving as hunting land for the king. In recent times the manor of Ashendon passed into the hands of the Marquis of Buckingham. Included in with the parish of Ashendon are the

hamlets A hamlet is a human settlement that is smaller than a town or village. Its size relative to a parish can depend on the administration and region. A hamlet may be considered to be a smaller settlement or subdivision or satellite entity to a lar ...

of Upper Pollicott and Lower Pollicott. The names of these hamlets derive from the

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo-Saxons happened wit ...

''Pol's Cottage''. In the less distant past, Ashendon was an entirely farming village and, at present, there is still much agricultural activity within the village. However, some of the farmhouses have been converted into private residences, the best example of this being Ashendon Farm and its barns. Although Ashendon is a small village, in comparison with many nearby

villages, it has a pub, a recreational playing field, a church and a thriving social club. One mile south-west of the village, near Lower Pollicott, on the

Chiltern Main Line The Chiltern Main Line is a railway line which links London () and Birmingham ( Moor Street and Snow Hill), the United Kingdom's two largest cities, by a route via High Wycombe, Bicester, Banbury, Leamington Spa and Solihull. It is one of ...

between and , is the site of the former Ashendon Junction, which was an elaborate

flying junction A flying junction or flyover is a railway junction at which one or more diverging or converging tracks in a multiple-track route cross other tracks on the route by bridge to avoid conflict with other train movements. A more technical term is " g ...

engineered for a high-speed turnout on to the now-dismantled link to the now disused

Great Central Main Line The Great Central Main Line (GCML), also known as the London Extension of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway (MS&LR), is a former railway line in the United Kingdom. The line was opened in 1899 and built by the Great Central Rai ...

at Grendon Underwood Junction. In former times this route was used by express trains between

London Marylebone Marylebone station ( ) is a Central London railway terminus and connected London Underground station in the Marylebone area of the City of Westminster. On the National Rail network it is also known as London Marylebone and is the southern ...

Leicester Leicester ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city, Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest settlement in the East Midlands. The city l ...

and

Sheffield Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire ...

References

External links

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UK & Ireland Genealogy
* {{authority control Villages in Buckinghamshire Civil parishes in Buckinghamshire