Waddesdon

Prehistoric flint found at Waddesdon Manor and on Lodge Hill might have been from a passing visit as many prehistoric groups moved about a lot. Roman pottery found at Waddesdon Manor was quite close to the Roman road known as Akeman Street, now the A41. This Roman pottery might mean that there is a Roman building or burial somewhere nearby.

Four Roman roads pass through Waddesdon parish. One goes from Aylesbury in the far right of the map, though Fleet Marston through Waddesdon village. This road is called Akeman Street and links London with Cirencester. Another road goes south-west through Eythrop. Two head north, one of them passes through Blackgrove Farm where Roman ditches, pottery and the road were found in an excavation when a gas pipeline was laid. The same pipeline uncovered ditches that seem to be field boundaries at Littleton Middle Farm. A site at Cranwell, just south of Akeman Street near Fleet Marston, was found on an aerial photograph. It is a rectangular building and may be Roman. Roman artefacts were also found south of Akeman Street but, this time, closer to Waddesdon. Roof and floor tiles, brick and flue tiles (hollow bricks used for walls to let the hot air through) were found in a field. Some pottery was also found, including parts of a mortarium (a pot used to grind spices and similar foods), flagons, storage jars and a cheese wring. It seems as though Roman settlement concentrated near the roads and the fields were further away from the roads. One of the most exciting Roman finds in the county was evidence for a vineyard found under Waddesdon Church of England School.

Saxon pottery found in the manor house grounds may have come from Waddesdon itself, which was a village in the Saxon period and is recorded in Domesday. It is possible that Saxon pottery could get thrown into the rubbish dump that was then used for fertilising fields. Saxon and medieval pottery and a medieval stone wall have all been found at Wormstone Farm. This might suggest that there was a building here back to the medieval period, and maybe even the Saxon period. A document of 1004 records the meeting place for Waddesdon Hundred at the Hundrythe Treowe (Hundred Tree), possibly on Windmill Hill. Waddesdon was on the edge of Bernwood Forest from the late Saxon period. Bernwood had been a hunting forest from the time of Edward the Confessor. It grew to its largest extent under Henry II. The whole area was not covered by woods; in the medieval period a forest was a place where deer roamed for hunting and so included open land, villages and fields. All those who lived in the forest were not allowed to hunt or even gather wood without a special licence from the king. Bernwood Forest was finally disafforested in the reign of James I in 1635, although it had been shrinking in size since the time of King John (1199-1216).

There were eight manors in Waddesdon parish in the medieval period. Four of the manors were in Waddesdon village. Three of these belonged to rectors of the church, Benthams, Motons and Green End, and each had a plot of land called Priest’s Acre. The fourth was Waddesdon manor for the village. Philosophy Farm was on this spot and was the farm belonging to an Oxford University philosophy professor in the medieval period. The other four controlled land on the outskirts of the parish. Eythrope, the furthest south, controlled Cranwell and Blackgrove manors, both to the north. Beachendon manor, to the west of Eythrope, was always a separate manor and was mentioned as a settlement in Domesday.

Three of the manors have moats that have been found by archaeologists. Moats are ditches dug to surround a square or rectangular area where there may have been a manor house. One moat is on the spot of Waddesdon village manor near the church, the next moat to the south is on Upper Cranwell Farm and is linked to Cranwell Manor and the moat furthest south is at Beachendon Farm and was probably the site of the manor house there.

St Michael’s church is a medieval building, built in the twelfth century. There was also a chantry chapel built in the fifteenth century at Eythrope using money left by Roger Dynham, who owned the manor. He wanted priests to say prayers for his soul after he died to make sure he got to heaven quickly. He was buried in a tomb at Waddesdon church. A Baptist Chapel was built on Waddesdon Hill in the 18^th century.

There are four deserted medieval settlements, three are associated with one of the manors outside the main village: Blackgrove Farm; Eythrope manor; and Beachendon Farm. The only deserted settlement not linked to a medieval manor is at Wormstone, south-east of Waddesdon village. Bits of building material were found in fields here and may come from a medieval building; part of a medieval house was dug up near Wormstone House.

There were four medieval mills in Waddesdon parish. Blagrave Mill is mentioned in the Domesday Book but no-one has found where it was, so it is marked in the centre of the parish. It may be connected with Blackgrove Farm. Two other watermills are known down in the south of the parish, on the River Thame. They are both close to Beachendon Farm, one just south-east of it and the other south-east of Bridge Lodge, and may both have belonged to it. Beachendon Manor probably made a lot of money by grinding other people’s corn into flour for them. There was one windmill to the west of the parish on a hill that is now known as Windmill Hill. A tower mill at Warmstone Farm was built in the 19^th century, stopped working by 1900 and was demolished by 1946.

The three main manors, Waddesdon, Eythrope and Beachendon, controlled the farms, settlement and milling in Waddesdon parish. Everyone from across the eight manors would attend the church in Waddesdon village, which is why it is such a grand building and was repaired so often.

The landscape garden at Waddesdon Manor date to the 18^th century but the manor itself is a 19^th century building made to look like a 16^th century French chateau. It was built for Ferdinand de Rothschild. There were lots of branches of the Rothschild family, who were originally from Austria, and one branch, the de Rothschilds, had come to England via France in the late eighteenth century. The Rothschilds built some of Buckinghamshire’s other great houses; Halton House, Ascott, Mentmore Towers, and Aston Clinton House as well as extending Tring mansion in Hertfordshire. Most of the buildings in the village are 19^th century in date. The Rothschild family built many of the nineteenth century buildings in the village to house their estate workers as well as the Five Arrows Hotel. Many of the buildings were made to look medieval.

Eythrope House, the manor house, was knocked down in 1810 and the de Rothschilds acquired the manor in the late 19^th century. Eythrope Pavilion was built for Alice de Rothschild, Ferdinand’s sister, between 1876 and 1879 and the gardens were also laid out at this time, over an 18^th century landscape. The 19^th century almshouses next to the village hall were built in 1894 for Ferdinand de Rothschild to replace 17^th century almshouses built by Arthur Goodwyn in 1657 for six poor widows.