Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire
Historical Description
Aylesbury or Ailesbury, a market and union town and a parish in Bucks. It is also the county town of Bucks. The town stands on a rising-ground, and on a small affluent of the river Tame, in the rich Vale of Aylesbury, at railway termini, 17 miles SSE of Buckingham, and 38 by road, or 43½ by railway, NW of London. One railway goes from it into junction with the L. & N.W., another with the G.W., and another, the Aylesbury and Buckingham, goes north-north-westward. The Aylesbury and Buckingham line has been taken over by the Metropolitan, by which line the town has also direct communication with London to Baker Street. A canal also, 6 miles long, rising 95 feet, with 16 locks, goes eastward to the Grand Junction Canal at Marsworth. Aylesbury was a strongly-fortified seat of the ancient Britons, and was maintained by them in independence till captured, in 572, by Cuthwolf, brother of Ceadwin, king of the West Saxons, and it was then called Eglesberg or Elisberie. It became a royal manor at the Conquest; was subsequently given to one of the followers of King John's court; belonged for ages to the Packingtons; passed, in the time of Henry VIII., to Sir John Baldwin, chief-justice of the Common Pleas, and was an important post of the Parliamentarian forces in 1644 and 1645.
The town is irregularly built, and consists of a spacious central, rectangular market-place, and diverging streets and thoroughfares. The corn-exchange and market-house were built in 1865, at a cost of £10,000, and are in the Tudor style. The county-hall is a large, handsome edifice of red brick. The workhouse was built in 1844, and is an edifice of red brick, in Tudor architecture. The parish church is a cruciform structure, of successive ages, from Early English to the latest Perpendicular; is surmounted at the centre by successively a low embattled tower, a square turret, a short spire, and a cross 9 feet high; was restored under the direction of Sir G. Gilbert Scott, R.A., the work being completed in 1869; contains beautifully stained windows, and two canopied decorated tombs; and is so situated as to command a fine view, and be seen for many miles round. The churchyard is extensive, and planted with trees. The prebendal house, adjoining the churchyard, occupies the site of an ancient monastery, was formerly the residence of the prebendaries of Aylesbury, and became the private property of Archdeacon Bickersteth when vicar of the parish. The Church of St John is a chapel of ease to the parish church. Walton, formerly a hamlet in the parish, now forms part of the town. It was made an ecclesiastical parish in 1846, and has a church erected about 1845. There are also Baptist, Congregational, Primitive Methodist, and Wesleyan chapels. The Roman Catholic church and presbytery of St Joseph were erected in 1893. There are also places of meeting for Christadelphians and " Christians."
The town has a head post and telegraph office, three banks, an endowed grammar school, a Literary Institute, with a reading room and library, a Working Men's Club, and a Masonic Hall. There is also a county infirmary, erected at a cost of upwards of £11,000 in 1862, and which has since been enlarged. The town publishes three weekly newspapers, and has a well-attended market every Saturday. Sales of fat stock are also held on Wednesdays, and fairs on the third Saturday in Jan., Saturday next before Palm Sunday, second Saturday in May, third Saturday in June, fourth Saturday in Sept., and second Saturday in Oct. There is a wool fair on the second Wednesday in July, a fair for the sale of rams on the first Saturday in August, and a fair for fat cattle on the second Wednesday in December. Lace-making once flourished, but has greatly declined; straw-plait making is still carried on in the neighbourhood, but is practically a decayed industry. There are large printing works, a condensed milk factory, and immense numbers of ducks are reared and fattened for the London market. Aylesbury is the seat of the assizes for the county, and the seat of the county quarter sessions and county council. It was a borough, governed by a corporation, under a charter of Mary, dated 1554; but, from neglect and disuse of its privileges, it forfeited the charter in the time of Elizabeth. It is now governed by a Local Board of Health of nine members. It has a good water supply, is well drained, paved, and lighted, and possessing, as it now does, exceptional railway facilities, its rapid development is anticipated. It formerly sent two members to Parliament, but was disfranchised in 1885 under the provisions of the Redistribution of Seats Act. The town gives the titles of Earl and Marquis to the family of Bruce. The Vale of Aylesbury is a fertile tract, described by Drayton as "lusty, firm, and fat," affording pasturage to an extraordinary number of sheep, interesting to geologists for abundance of ammonites and other fossils, and bounded along the S and the N by chalk hills. Population of the town, 8680. The area of the parish is 3288 acres; population of the civil parish, 8922; of the ecclesiastical, 6642. The living is a vicarage; gross yearly value, £300, including 85 acres of glebe, in the gift of the Bishop of Oxford. The living of Walton is a vicarage; gross yearly value, £290 with residence, in the gift of trustees.
Aylesbury Parliamentary Division, or Mid Bucks, was formed under the Redistribution of Seats Act of 1885, and returns one member to the House of Commons. Population, 55,826. The division includes the following:-Winslow (part of)-Creslow, Oving, Pitchcott, Qnainton, Shipton Lee, Whitchurch; Aylesbury (Three Hundreds of)-Aston Clinton - with - St Leonards, Aston Sandford, Aylesbury-with-Walton, Bierton-with-Broughton, Buckland, Cuddington, Dinton, Drayton Beauchamp, Ellesborough, Fleet Marston, Haddenham, Halton, Hampden (Great), Hampden (Little), Hardwick, Hartwell, Horsendon, Hulcott, Illmire, Kimble (Great), Kimble (Little), Kingsey, Lee, Missenden (Great), Missenden (Little), Monks Risborough, Princes Risborough, Quarrendon, Stoke Mandeville, Stone-with-Bishopstone, Towersey, Waddesden, Weedon, Wendover, Westcott, Weston Turville, Winchendon (Lower), Winchendon (Upper); Chesham-Chenies, Chesham, Chesham Bois, Cholesbury, Hawridge; Linslade-Aston Abbotts, Cheddington, Cublington, Ediesborough, Grove, Ivinghoe, Linslade, Marsworth, Mentmore, Nettleden, Pitstone, Slapton, Soulbury, Stewkley, Wing, Wingrave; Desborough (Second Division, part of)-Bledlow with Bledlow Ridge, Bradenham, Hughenden, Radnage, Saunderton.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
Ancient County | Buckinghamshire | |
Ecclesiastical parish | Aylesbury St. Mary | |
Hundred | Aylesbury | |
Poor Law union | Aylesbury |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The parish register dates from the year 1564
Churches
Church of England
St. John the Evangelist, Cambridge Street
The church of St. John the Evangelist, in Cambridge street, erected in 1883 as a chapel of ease to the parish church, is an edifice of red brick, consisting of nave, chancel added in 1894 and a belfry containing 3 tubular bells. presented in 1906 by Mrs. W. Blewitt: in 1901 carved oak choir stalls were introduced, and in 1920 a stained window was erected at the east end as a memorial to the men of the parish who fell in the Great War, 1914-18: in 1933, to commemorate the church's jubilee, a carved oak chancel screen and pulpit were erected: there are 600 sittings.
St. Mary (parish church)
The parish church of St. Mary, a fine cruciform building, undoubtedly replacing a church of Saxon origin, stands on the western side of the town, nearly at its highest elevation, and is therefore a conspicuous object from all parts of the surrounding country: the most ancient portions of the existing structure are Early English of the 13th century, the transepts being fine specimens of that style: the church consists of chancel, nave, aisles with chapels, transepts, south porch, and a massive central embattled tower of Early English date, with panelled battlements of Perpendicular character, from within which rises a small turret and spire of woodwork covered with lead, erected in the 17th century: the tower contains a peal of 8 bells and a sanctus bell, dated 1612: it has been wholly refaced with rubble stone, the turret and spire recased with lead and ornamental clock dials of cast iron affixed to the exterior: the chapels date from the 14th and 15th centuries, both containing piscinae: the south porch and the western entrance are fine specimens of Early English: the west window, Late Perpendicular, is filled with stained glass, presented by Acton Tindal esq. in 1862. In a recess beneath a moulded and feathered arch in the north transept lies the effigy of a knight in white marble, clad in the plate and chain armour of the 14th century, the head resting on a helmet; the figure was long supposed to have formed part of the tomb of James Boteler, founder of the Grey Friars monastery, once standing in the town, having been found buried in grounds once attached to the monastery; the slight armorial bearings which can be discerned appear, however, to be those of the Lee family, of Quarrendon, and the figure may therefore represent Sir Robert Lee, of Bulcote, a member of that family: there is also in this transept a fine old Elizabethan monument with quaint inscription to Lady Lee, wife of Sir Henry Lee K.G. of Quarrendon, with alabaster figures of herself and children; and within Early English niches, in the wall of the north aisle, are two stone coffins of the 12th century, discovered in the course of some repairs made about 1850: the chancel is Early English: the stained east window, a fine triple lancet, richly ornamented with shafts and carved capitals, is filled with designs copied from an old window of this period in Chetwode Priory; on either side are three lancets, also stained: the chancel stalls, dating from the 15th century, are in a good state of preservation and the roof is a fine specimen of the waggon or cradle roof: the chancel contains a double aumbry, trefoil headed, and a tomb or Easter sepulchre of Early English date: on the north side of the chancel is the old sacristy, with upper storey, containing an ancient fireplace and a baluster window: in the north transept are two piscinae, a trefoil-headed reredos and a sepulchre, both Early English: the Lady chapel, a beautiful work of the 14th century, was restored in 1897 at a cost of £400, in commemoration of the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria: below it is a charnel or bone-hole; this was formerly supposed to be a Saxon crypt, but both Mr. St. John Hope and the Rev. D. B. S. Cranage agree that it is of later date; it is now entered by means of a trap-door and ladder, but there are traces of a stone staircase leading up into the south transept: the present choir vestry contains a wardrobe of oak of the early part of the 16th century: the stained west window of the north chapel was inserted in 1870 by Mr. Thomas Perrin, and in the south chapel is a memorial window erected in June. 1871. by Mr. and Mrs. James Ceely, to their son; and another, placed in 1873, by Miss Batten, to the memory of her father and mother: two small statues of SS. Peter and James, the patron saints respectively of Quarendon and Bierton, placed on either side of the doorway of the south transept, were given by Sir George G. Scott R.A.; the oak benches are in facsimile of the ancient seating of the church: the font is Norman, and nearly 3 feet in diameter, and has a circular escalloped bowl, with rich scroll work round the upper part, and stands on a cushioned base carved with foliage; this is the type specimen of several fonts of the 12th century found in the neighbourhood: the whole of the interior and exterior of the church was thoroughly repaired and restored in 1869: the reredos, presented in 1891 as a memorial to H. A. P. Cooper esq. is of gilt mahogany, with painted panels, depicting various scripture scenes: in 1902 the sanctuary was panelled in oak, sedilia, with two canopied figures of SS. Peter and Paul erected. and two brass candlesticks presented, the whole forming a memorial to the Rev. H. B. McNair vicar 1889-95. by his widow and brother: the roof was repaired in 1902 and again in 1924: on the north side of the church is a memorial chapel to Buckinghamshire men who fell in the Great War, 1914-18; there are 1,150 sittings. The churchyard, which was closed against interments Dec. 11th, 1855, is extensive, well kept, and planted with avenues of trees.
Civil Registration
Aylesbury was in Aylesbury Registration District from 1837 to 1974
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Aylesbury from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Aylesbury (St. Mary))
Land and Property
The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Buckinghamshire is available to browse.
Maps
Online maps of Aylesbury are available from a number of sites:
- Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- Google Streetview.
- National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
- OpenStreetMap.
- old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
- Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)
Newspapers and Periodicals
The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Buckinghamshire papers online:
Visitations Heraldic
A full transcript of the Visitation of Buckinghamshire, 1634 is online