Drayton Beauchamp

Grim’s Ditch, which runs through this parish and many others in the area, is dated either to the Iron Age or the Saxon period. Part of it was sectioned but there was no extra evidence to be able to firmly date it. There are also three potential Bronze Age barrows that have been seen on aerial photographs to the south-west of Church Hill Farm. Late Iron Age and Roman artefacts, including pottery, have been found on footpaths and in metal-detecting surveys. A late Iron Age ditch and Saxon cemetery was also found in geophysical survey, trial trenching and excavation for the Aston Clinton bypass. The A41 follows the route of the Roman Akeman Street, which has been studied in field survey.

A fishpond and moat that may date to the medieval period are known at Upper Farm. There are historic records of a watermill in the parish in the fourteenth century but, otherwise, the oldest building in the village is St Mary's church, which mainly dates to the fifteenth century but incorporates thirteenth and fourteenth century material and a twelfth century font. It was restored in the nineteenth century.

There are one or two seventeenth century houses, such as Old Manor Farm, but the majority date to the nineteenth century, such as Lock Cottage. The latter was, of course, related to the Grand Union Canal (two arms of which, Aylesbury and Wendover, pass through this parish), which has a lock and bridge on this stretch. There are records of a coprolite quarry in the nineteenth century which would have relied on the canal for transportation. Other industrial workings include two dene holes, chalk mines, one of which was found when a combine harvester wheel dropped down into it.