Great Hampden, Buckinghamshire Family History Guide
Great Hampden is an Ancient Parish in the county of Buckinghamshire.
Other places in the parish include: Hampden Row.
Alternative names:
Parish church:
Parish registers begin:
- Parish registers: 1557
- Bishop’s Transcripts: 1600
Nonconformists include:
Table of Contents
Adjacent Parishes
Parish History
The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales 1870
HAMPDEN (Great), a parish in Wycombe district, Bucks; upon the Chiltern hills, 3 miles ESE of Princes-Risborough r. station, and 4 S by W of Wendover.
It contains the hamlet of Hampden Row; and its post town is Great Missenden, under Amersham. Acres, 710. Real property, £, 780. Pop., 266. Houses, 53. The property is mostly in one estate.
Hampden House belonged to Griffith Hampden; was visited, in his time, by Queen Elizabeth; descended to his grandson, John Hampden, the famous patriot; belongs now to G. Cameron, Esq., the descendant of the patriot, in the 8th generation, through heirs female; retains its original character, though much defaced by whitewash and stucco; is entered by a curious old hall, with a wooden gallery; and contains, in Queen Elizabeth’s room, in John Hampden’s library, and in other apartments, many historical relics.
The park has an avenue, called the Queen’s Gap, which was laid open for the entrance of Elizabeth; and a spot in it, on the S side of the avenue, and within Stoke-Mandeville, is still pointed out as the piece of land for John Hampden’s resistance to a small tax on which he was led to trial, and the spark of the civil war Was kindled.
“The woods of Hampden,” says Lord Nugent, “terminate to the N upon the bare brow of a lofty hill called Green Haly, in the side of which is cut in the chalk the form of a cross, which is seen from all the country round. This monument, of very remote antiquity, is called the White Leaf Cross, from the hamlet of White Leaf. It appears to have been intended as a memorial of the last battle of the Britons with Hengist and Horsa, which was fought over the extensive plain of Risborough and Saunderton. The Saxon princes planted their victorions standards on this height and on the Bledlow ridge adjoining, to recall their troops from the pursuit.”
The living is a rectory in the diocese of Oxford. Value, £336. Patron, D. Cameron, Esq. The church is ancient, picturesque, and good; and has a tablet, by John Hampden, to his first wife, brasses of a Hampden of 1446 and Sir J. Hampden of 1553, and a monument of the last Hampden prior to the female heirs. The grave of John Hampden is within the church; and, on being opened in 1828, was found to contain his body in nearly entire condition.
Source: The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales [Wilson, John M]. A. Fullarton & Co. N. d. c. [1870-72].
Parish Records
FamilySearch
Maps
Old maps of Britain and Europe from A Vision of Britain Through Time
Administration
- County: Buckinghamshire
- Civil Registration District: Wycombe
- Probate Court: Court of the Archdeaconry of Buckingham
- Diocese: Pre-1845 – Lincoln, Post-1844 – Oxford
- Rural Deanery: Pre-1845 – None, Post-1844 – Wendover
- Poor Law Union: Wycombe
- Hundred: Aylesbury
- Province: Canterbury