Edlesborough

A Neolithic flint flake and axe were found in allotments in Dagnall, along with Roman and medieval pottery. Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age flints were found in fieldwalking near the Washbrook Stream with Roman tile, quern fragments and pottery. A pit of unknown, but possibly prehistoric or Roman, date was found in the Aylesbury-Buncefield pipeline excavation, which passed through this parish. Iron Age and Roman ditches, pits and pottery were also found. A possible enclosure at Coombe Bottom is known from an aerial photograph, but again the date is uncertain. Roman finds are also known from Coldharbour, where cinerary urns were found in the nineteenth century and from fieldwalking near the Tring Road, where Saxon artefacts were also found. A possible Saxon cemetery was found in the nineteenth century at Maylands in Dagnall.

A possible medieval chapel is recorded in the field-name Chapel Dell, and there are also historical records for its presence in the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries. Documents record the presence of a watermill from the eleventh century in Edlesborough, separate manors at Dagnall and Bowell’s manor and a moat at Church Farm. There are also lots of earthworks of the medieval period, such as the moat and hollow-way at Manor Farm, the moat at Butler’s Farm that was infilled in the nineteenth century, one at Peppiatt’s Farm associated with a fishpond, two fishponds at Church Farm and medieval field lynchets near the church. Archaeologists observed a test-pit inside St Mary’s church, which revealed several skulls and medieval pottery, tile and stone. The oldest building is the church, with a thirteenth century nave aisles and chancel, fourteenth century tower and windows and fifteenth century north chapel and porches. It sits on a natural mound. It is, unfortunately, now redundant.

There are many listed buildings in Edlesborough, which date to the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Charity Farm is particularly interesting as it is a Wealden type house that is more commonly found in Kent. Church Farm has a fifteenth to sixteenth century tithe barn and an eighteenth century dovecote. Ivy Cottage dates to the early nineteenth century but appears to incorporate a medieval cruck truss. 51 The Green has two medieval bays with a sixteenth to seventeenth century cross-wing.

Dagnall Hamlet was a post-medieval farmstead that is now deserted. At Dagnallhall Farm a field boundary detected in field survey may date to this period too. The church and mission at Dagnall was built in the nineteenth century and there are surviving post-medieval stocks there as well. There is a record of a nineteenth to twentieth century steam-mill in Edlesborough, as well as an eighteenth to nineteenth century windmill recorded on historic maps and a watermill of similar date near Ivinghoe church. Dagnall Brewery was established in the early twentieth century, though it was demolished in the 1960s/70s.