STONE HUNDRED 



GREAT HAMPDEN 



GREAT HAMPDEN 



Ha(m)dena (xi cent.) ; Magna Hamden (xiv cent.). 



The parish of Hampden lies on the dopes of the 

 Chiltern Hills, the greatest height being 711$ ft. 

 above the ordnance datum at Hampden House. The 

 subsoil is chalk, 1 and the surface clay and gravel. 

 The inhabitants are chiefly occupied in fanning, 

 I.I28J acres being arable land and 470} permanent 

 pasture. There are 408} acres of wood in the parish.* 

 A road from Aylesbury to Amersham passes through the 

 parish. There is practically no village, the people living 

 in scattered farms and cottages. The nearest stations are 

 at Princes Risborough and Great Missenden. There 

 is a common in the southern part of the parish, lying 

 near Blakemore Farm, and various springs give an 

 excellent supply of water, but there are, however, no 

 brooks of any kind. The earthwork known at 

 Grim's Dyke can be traced for some distance not far 

 from Hampden House. In 1885 portions of Little 

 Hampden and Stoke Mandeville parishes were formed 

 into the civil parish called Great and Little Hamp- 

 den by Local Government order, dated 25 March of 

 that year. 



The principal house in the parish is Hampden 

 House, situated high on the Chiltern Hills in a breezy 

 and open park-like country. Though rich in associa- 

 tions and possessing many traces of old work, succes- 

 sive additions, particularly those of the 1 8th century, 

 have left only fragments of the earlier plans. As it 

 stands to-day, it is an E-shaped building facing south, 

 with a large east wing running north and south. 

 The principal entrance to the house is on the north 

 side of the main building. The oldest part is the 

 central projection of the E ; it is at least as old as 

 the first half of the 141)1 century, and according to 

 local tradition was originally a tower, though the 

 walls, some three feet thick, do not confirm the idea. 

 It is of two stories, with a modern embattled parapet 

 projecting on corbels, below which is a flat band of 

 trefoiled arches, probably an 18th-century addition, 

 which runs round the whole house at this level. In 

 the south face of this building is a wide I ;th-ccntury 

 entrance doorway, but the inner doorway, which 

 leads to the body of the house, is of mid- 14th-century 

 date with the characteristic wave-mould and hollow. 

 The rear arches of the windows of this room are also 

 of the same date. The body of the house dates, as 

 far as can be seen, from the beginning of the ijth 

 century, and is separated from the older portion by a 

 space of some eighteen inches or more. It is of two 

 stories and an attic, with wooden-mullioned windows, 

 and fine stacks of brick chimneys with octagonal 

 shafts, and contains in its eastern half the hall and the 

 great staircase, both of 17th-century date, but greatly 

 altered and ' embellished ' in the 1 8th century, and 

 again later in comparatively modern times. The 

 hall runs through two stories, having balustraded 

 galleries on all sides on the first-floor level ; its walls 

 are panelled and hung with portraits, and it has a 

 coved plaster ceiling. The kitchens and offices lie to 

 the west of the hall. The large east wing of the 

 house was completely altered in character by Robert, 



afterwards first Viscount Hampden, about 1760, at 

 which time, or possibly later, almost the whole of the 

 exterior of the house was coated with cement. This 

 wing contains the present dining-room, with a bed- 

 room beyond it to the north, a large drawing-room in 

 the middle of the wing, with smaller rooms north and 

 south of it, and at the south end the old dining-room, 

 now a billiard room. A passage runs along the west 

 side of the wing, being made at the expense of the 

 series of rooms, which were arranged after the fashion 

 of the day, to open one to another. They contain 

 some fine plaster ceilings and interesting examples of 

 Chinese wall papers, the bills for which were recently 

 discovered amongst some old documents, and are dated 

 1740. In the bedroom at the north end of the wing 

 is a fine Chippendale bed, in which tradition says that 

 Queen Elizabeth once slept ; the claim has probably 

 been transferred from some older bed formerly here. 

 Hampden House contains many interesting portraits 

 of the H.impdcns and Hobarts, and also of many 

 great people from the i6th century on. There are 

 full-length portraits of Queen Elizabeth and Queen 

 Henrietta Maria, of Oliver Cromwell, Bishop Bonner, 

 Sir Kenelm Digby, and others. Of John Hampden 

 ' the patriot," with whose name the chief interest of 

 the house must ever be associated, there are several 

 relics. A silver cup, dated 1568, is preserved as that 

 from which he received the Holy Sacrament before 

 his death in June 1643 ; a long room in the attic 

 story is called John Hampden's Library, and the room 

 in the angle between the hall and the east wing is 

 said to be the scene of his arrest for refusal to pay the 

 ship-money tax. There are two portraits of him in 

 the house, one by Jansen coming from Strawberry 

 Hill, but it seems doubtful whether they, or a small 

 bust also here, are really what they claim to be. 



The surroundings of the house are very picturesque, 

 a splendid avenue of beech trees running eastwards 

 down the slopes from the east wing, and close by to 

 the south is the church of Great Hampden, approached 

 from the road by another avenue. 



There is only one mention of HAMP- 

 M4NOR DEN in Domesday Book, and this in all 

 probability refers to Great Hampden only.* 

 Before the Conquest Baldwin, a man of Archbishop 

 Stigand, held and could sell the manor of Hamp Jen, 

 but afterwards it formed part of the lands of William 

 son of Ansculf. 4 With the rest of his lands it passed 

 to the Somery family, and formed part of the honour 

 of Dudley.* In 1 302-3 it was held of John de 

 Bernak of the honour of Dudley,' and in 1 346 of 

 Galfrid Bernak. 7 William son of Ansculf granted 

 the manor to Otbert, or Osbert, who held it at the 

 time of the Domesday Survey. 8 In a 17th-century 

 pedigree of the Hampden family, Osbert is said to 

 have been the son of Baldwin, the tenant in the time 

 of Edward the Confessor, and the descent of the 

 Hampden family is traced from him.' One name, 

 however, in the pedigree does not coincide with the 

 descent obtained from a lawsuit of the reign of 

 Henry III. In the pedigree Osbert was succeeded in 



1 I'.CM. Bucki. i, Geological Map. 

 1 Information from Bd. of Agric. 

 <I005). Y.C.H. Bucla. i, 154*. 



Ibid. 



> Tntt d, Nrvitl (Rec. Com.), 245*. 



Ft mi. Aidi, i, 98. 



287 



1 Ibid, i, 113. 



r.c.ll. Buck,, i, a 54*. 

 ' Liptcomb, Hi it. of Buck,, ii, 301. 



