A HISTORY OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE 



payment of the tithes to the vicar of Owlswick. The 

 rectory of Monks Risborough was sequestrated in 1 646, 

 and Nathaniel Anderson had thereupon been admitted 

 to the benefice, and had undertaken to find a curate 

 for the chapel to whom he was to allow about 30 a 

 year, a vicarage house, and certain tithes. 84 Whether, 

 under ordinary circumstances, the curate of the chapel 

 was provided by the vicar of the parish church or by 

 the patron does not appear, since the chapel was 

 destroyed during the Civil War. There is now a 

 school chapel in the hamlet, built in 1866. 



The charities of the Rev. Hum- 

 CH4RITIES phrey Hody, D.D., and the Rev. 

 William Quarles, D.D., for appren- 

 ticing, are endowed with 14 acres, purchased with 

 100 left by will of Dr. Hody, 1706, and with 150 

 left by will of Dr. Quarles, 1727, and with 8 acres 

 allotted in 1830 under the Inclosure Award. 



The land is let at 12 a year, which is applied, as 

 opportunity offers, in paying the premium on appren- 



ticing one boy, selected from the Sunday school. In 

 1905 there was a balance in hand of .66. 



The said Dr. Quarles likewise devised his close called 

 Ives Heath to the rector in trust to pay 40^. a year 

 for instruction of poor boys in writing English and to 

 read their Catechism. The annuity is paid towards 

 the support of the Sunday school. 



The Poor's Allotment consists of 273. 3 r. 36 p., 

 allotted under the Inclosure Act, 2 Geo. IV, cap. 1 7 

 (Private), to the poor, in satisfaction of their right of 

 cutting and taking beech and other brushwood or 

 fuel from the waste called the Scrubbs, the rents and 

 profits to be laid out in the purchase of fuel to be dis- 

 tributed among the poor. The land is let at 50 a 

 year, which is applied by the parish council in the 

 distribution of coal. 



An annual sum of l, issuing out of land in Barnes 

 Field, is paid by Mrs. Jaques of Horsenden House, in 

 respect of a gift by a donor unknown, which is applied 

 by the parish council in the distribution of stockings. 



PRINCES RISBOROUGH 



Riseberge (xi cent.) ; Magna Risberge (xiii cent.) ; 

 Earls Rysebergh (xiv cent.) ; Princes Risburgh (xv 

 cent.). 



The parish of Princes Risborough lies on the 

 western side of the county of Buckingham. It 

 contains 3,936^- acres, the greater part, viz. 2,620 

 acres, being arable land. 1 There are 1,276^ acres 

 laid down in permanent grass, and 40 acres of wood. 

 The subsoil is chalk, 2 but the surface soil is variable ; 

 on the hills it is generally light and chalky, and 

 in the lowlands either loam or strong clay. The 

 parish lies on the north-western slope of the Chiltern 

 Hills, rising to over 770 ft. above the Ordnance 

 datum. 



The occupation of the people is almost entirely 

 agricultural. There is an iron-foundry at the hamlet 

 of Looseley Row, and sequin and bead-work is done 

 by women at Lacey Green. Water-cress beds exist 

 near the town of Princes Risborough, where there are 

 several springs. Princes Risborough is a small market 

 town, lying 8f miles south of Aylesbury on the high 

 road from Aylesbury to Wycombe. The road from 

 Wycombe to Thame branches off to the north-west 

 at the northern end of the town, and the Upper 

 Icknield Way also crosses the parish. The Wycombe 

 branch of the Great Western Railway runs to the west of 

 the town, the station being about three-quarters of a 

 mile away. In 1906 the Great Central Railway 

 opened a branch line to Aylesbury in conjunction 

 with the Great Western Railway, and this line passes 

 through Princes Risborough Station. The centre of the 

 town is at the junction of the three main streets, 

 where the square, red-brick market-house stands, with 

 open arcades and a covered walk on its lower story, 

 and a wooden cupola containing a bell rising from its 

 low slate roof. There are a good many 18th-century 

 red-brick fronts, and near the market-house a gabled 

 half-timber house with herringbone brick filling and 

 a fine central chimney stack. The church is at the 

 north-west corner of the town, standing in a large 



churchyard, and to the east of it is the manor-house, 

 with remains of two sides of a deep moat in its grounds. 



The manor-house is a handsome red-brick build- 

 ing with pilasters and mouldings in cut and 

 rubbed brick. It appears to date from the beginning 

 of the 1 8th century, but its staircase and the panel- 

 ling of the drawing-room are some fifty years 

 earlier, and may have been removed from an older 

 building on the same site. They fit so well into 

 their present position that it seems as if the house 

 must have been built with a view to receiving 

 them. The staircase is of oak with a heavy moulded 

 hand-rail and a balustrade of scrollwork, and large 

 square newels with ball finials and moulded pendants. 

 The drawing-room panelling is in two ranges with 

 tall arched upper panels, with small moulded key 

 blocks. Above is a frieze and an elaborate cornice of 

 many moulded members. The mantel is part of the 

 general design, and is enriched with a small Tuscan 

 order, a central oval panel, and flat baluster pilasters 

 below the mantel-shelf. At the window recesses are 

 pilasters reaching from floor to ceiling, the propor- 

 tions, workmanship, and design being extremely good, 

 and though comparatively plain, the room is a charm- 

 ing example of its date. The entrance hall is also 

 panelled, but not so elaborately, and is probably of 

 the same date as the house. The windows through- 

 out are sashed, and have heavy glazing bars. 



Henry VIII made a grant to the inhabitants of 

 Princes Risborough in 1523 of a weekly market and 

 two yearly fairs. 8 The market was held on Wednes- 

 days, and the fairs for three days at the Feast of the 

 Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, and on St. George's 

 Day. The market day in 1792 had been changed 

 to Saturday, and again in 1888 to Thursday. In 

 1792 there was only one fair held, on 6 May.* A 

 second fair has since been revived and is now held on 

 21 October. 



The town obtained a charter from Queen Eliza- 

 beth in 1598, granting to the inhabitants immunity 



84 Exch. Com. Mich. 1656, no. 14. 

 1 Inf. from Bd. of Agric. (1905). 



V.C.H. Bucks, i, Geological Map. 

 8 Pat. 15 Hen. VIII, pt. i, m. 23. 



260 



4 Rip. Royal Com. on Markets and Tolls, 

 vol. i. 



