Hartwell

This is Hartwell parish according to the 1974 boundaries. Some of the sites mentioned here are now in Aylesbury. The Aylesbury Past field-walking project covered parts of Hartwell and much evidence of prehistoric, Roman and medieval activity was found as the result. Neolithic to Bronze Age flint flakes and medieval pottery were found south of Coldharbour Farm (which is now covered by Fairford Leys); prehistoric pottery and flint and Roman and medieval pottery east of Coldharbour; Iron Age, Roman and Saxon pottery and prehistoric flake in a field north of Bishopstone; and Neolithic to Bronze Age flint flakes and a flint axe, prehistoric, Roman and medieval pottery were found west of Walton Court Estate. Some Roman pottery also came up in a housing development west of Ellen Road. A possible barrow or post-medieval landscape feature is known in the grounds of Hartwell House and an ice-house was inserted into it in the eighteenth century. Evaluation trenches and excavation identified Neolithic pits, Early Iron Age settlement and a Late Iron Age round-house and associated field system and a Roman ditch and gully east of Coldharbour Farm. Roman pottery, Samian and Late Iron Age to Roman urns and glass was found at Locke’s Brickfield in the early twentieth century.

A Saxon cemetery was found in the nineteenth century, though its exact location is now unknown. There are several systems of medieval earthworks, such as a pond south of Coldharbour Farm; medieval house platforms, moat, track and boundary north of Lower Hartwell Farm; a windmill mound near Hartwell House with records in the thirteenth century; and medieval to post-medieval house platforms or field system at Sedrup Farm. There are historical records of a pottery kiln in the parish in the fifteenth century but no physical evidence has yet been found. St Mary’s church dated to the fifteenth century though it was rebuilt in the seventeenth. It fell into disrepair in the 1940s but was rescued. Wall Bridge is marked as a boundary of Aylesbury on a sixteenth century charter.

Most of the listed buildings in this parish date to the eighteenth century and a few are made of witchert, a local building material, such as Hazel Cottage and The Thatch in Sedrup Green. Hartwell House is an eighteenth century remodelling of a seventeenth century plan and was converted to a hotel in the twentieth century. Remains of an earlier house were discovered in the renovation. There are many garden features in the grounds, such as the Egyptian Seat, the Gothic Tower and an obelisk, all typical of eighteenth century landscape gardens.

A brick kiln is recorded in an eighteenth century document near Lower Hartwell Farm and another from the nineteenth century near Hartwell House. A nineteenth century watermill is known at Haydon Mill from historical records and is possibly on the site of a medieval to post-medieval watermill. Historic maps also mark the site of nineteenth century rifle butts near Coldharbour Farm.