Seer Green

The village overlies silts and gravels, deposited by the River Thames at the end of the last Ice Age, and through which dry valleys cut down into the underlying chalk. The surrounding agricultural lands are pasture. Areas of ancient woodland include Hodgemoor Woods, in the north of the parish. Former extraction pits (for example north of Aeswood Farm) for gravel or clay for the local brick and pottery industries, are distributed across the area.

Palaeolithic finds include a handaxe and an axe-head from a railway cutting at Seer Green Halt, and a handaxe from a gravel quarry at Long Bottom Lane. Neolithic or Early Bronze Age flint scrapers (for example NW of Wilton Lane) are commonly found within surface deposits, and an arrowhead was found in the garden of a cottage on Chalfont Road.

A Roman road passes through Hodgemoor Woods. This is most likely the 'Camlet Way' between the Roman towns of Verulamium (at St Albans) and Calleva Atrebatum (at Silchester). In the vicinity of this road are the remnants of late prehistoric to early Roman field systems and a possible Romano-British farmstead. Another possible farmstead, probably of similar age, can be seen on LiDAR coverage within Green Wood. Extensive medieval ridge and furrow cuts across the Roman road. A report from an Elizabethan Court of Survey from 1561 indicates the date of the planting of these woodland areas to be the mid-1550s. This is probably also the date of the associated wood-banks, as well as the start of field enclosure within the parish.

The origin of the name Seer Green may derive from the Old English 'sear or sere' - dry or barren, and 'grene' - a grassy spot. At Domesday, Seer Green was a detached part of Farnham Royal, and as such was held by Bertram de Verdun. The first certain documentary record of Seer Green (La Sere) is in a Court Chancery Roll of Henry III from 1232. For a short period in the late thirteenth (by 1284) and early fourteenth (after 1309) centuries, it was also a manor in its own right, held by the Verdun family. A rectangular ditched enclosure seen on LiDAR coverage could be the remains of the manorial property.

It continued to be held by the descendants of the Verduns, as part of the manor of Farnham Royal. Then, through marriage, it passed through the Furnival, Neville and Talbot families. It thereby became a holding of the Earls of Shrewsbury. In 1541 the 5th Earl of Shrewsbury exchanged the manor of Farnham with Henry VIII, for the manor of Worksop, and it then became a holding of Elizabeth I.

The oldest standing building in Seer Green is Hall Place. This dates to the sixteenth century and was originally several agricultural cottages. Other timber-framed buildings, including Colliers, Peaceful Cottage and Pondstile, are seventeenth century. A 1689 Quarter Session record tells of the registration of a Quaker meeting house called 'Tiler's'. though the location of this property is not known. The asseblage of timber framed and brick-built farm buildings at Newbarn Farm are eighteenth century.

Francis Godolphin (who later became 2nd Baron Godolphin) acquired the lands from the Earl of Leicester in 1753. The Estate map of this date shows the area to be fully enclosed. Later maps of the Farnham Inclosure in 1831, and the Tithe Commutation in 1841, show no further changes in partition of the land. Through the Godolphin family line, the manor of Farnham became a property of the Dukes of Leeds. This title became extinct in 1964.

Seer Green's intangible heritage comprises many rural crafts. These include pottery making, bodging and associated timber trades, lace-making, bead-work and needlecrafts. Census records show a thriving lace-making community during mid-Victorian times. A Lace School is thought to have existed on the site occupied by the first Baptist Church. This chapel building, now the Parish Church Hall, was probably built in the mid-nineteenth century and was modified in 1933. The village is also considered a 'Cherry Pie Village', in recognition of its farms having supplied cherries to London markets.

The village is centred on the small agricultural hamlet that once surrounded the green, now occupied by the Holy Trinity Church. The church and the Vicarage were built in 1846, with the parish becoming a seperate ecclesiastical parish in 1847 and a civil parish in 1901. The school and school house were built in 1859, and a replacement Baptist Chapel in 1899.

The village changed significantly with the arrival of the Great Western and Great Central Joint Railway.  This was built between London and Birmingham in 1905. Where it passed through the Wilton Park estate, a railway halt was built, to service the new Beaconsfield golf course. The halt was formally opened to the public as a full station at the end of 1914. The railway thus brought an influx of people, as well as 'Arts and Crafts' style residential development, during the 1920s and 1930s.

Part of Hodgemoor Woods was also occupied during World War II for troop build-up. Then, immediately post-war, these facilities were used as a Polish refugee and resettlement camp. This camp continued to be occupied until 1962.

Further residential expansion took place in the 1960s and 1970s. The Victorian Manor Farm, with its cherry orchards and agricultural lands, was replaced by a modern housing estate. A new community hall was erected to commemorate Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee in 1977, and a new Baptist Church was erected in 1980.

Many thanks to Nigel Rothwell who updated this page in 2022.