Cheddington

Cheddington’s Iron Age hillfort on Southend Hill forms part of a string of hillforts along the Chilterns. It has been surveyed and there are many good aerial photographs of the site. A few pieces of Iron Age pottery and flint has also been found in the vicinity. Recently aerial photographs have shown what may be the end of a Neolithic cursus or mortuary enclosure nearby that would pre-date the hillfort. One sherd of Bronze Age or Iron Age pottery was also found in ditch-digging in Mentmore Park.

Roman pottery and tile has been found in field-walking at Westend Hill and also picked up informally south of the village. Some Roman activity could be expected as it is thought that a Roman road passes through the parish.

There are a few earthworks that may date to the medieval period, such as possible cultivation terraces under the hillfort on Southend Hill and on Westend Hill. There are also the moat and fishpond that were recorded in field survey at Home Close. The earliest standing building is the church, which seems to have been founded in the twelfth century, though the tower and north aisle are fifteenth century, as is the font and the building has seen some nineteenth and twentieth century restoration. The oldest secular building is The Chase which incorporates some fifteenth century fabric.

Otherwise the other houses date to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, such as the Manor House, though there are records of a manor house going back to the thirteenth century. Other houses date to the nineteenth century, such as 25 High Street. There are also records and remains of an industrial past, such as records of a nineteenth century windmill at Mill Way Butts and a bridge over the Grand Union Canal, as well as the historic railway route to Aylesbury.