Bledlow, Buckinghamshire
Historical Description
Bledlow, a village and a parish in Bucks. The village stands in a romantic ravine, called the Glyde, on the verge of the county, 2 miles SW of Princes Risborough, and has a station on the G.W.R., and a post office under Princes Risborough (R.S.O.), which is the money order and telegraph office. The parish includes also the ecclesiastical parish of Bledlow-Ridge. Acreage, 4169; population, 978. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Oxford; net value, £180. Patron, Lord Carrington. The church is Early English, was restored in 1876, and stands on the brink of the ravine at the village. The church at Bledlow-Ridge is a building of flint and stone in the Early English style, and was erected in 1868. The living is a vicarage; net yearly value, £130. Pitch Green and Routs Green are adjacent hamlets.
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 | Bledlow Holy Trinity | |
Hundred | Aylesbury | |
Poor Law union | Wycombe |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The parish register dates from the year 1592
Churches
Church of England
The Holy Trinity (parish church)
The parish church of the Holy Trinity is an ancient structure of flint and stone, in the Transition Norman style with Decorated windows and clerestory added; it consists of chancel, clerestoried nave of four bays, aisles, south porch and a western tower containing 5 bells, four of which date back to 1865, the fifth having been recast in 1841: the inner doorway of the south porch is very fine, consisting of a pointed arch with small circular shafts of Early English date; on the right of this door there is an unusually large holy-water stoup; over the outer door is a dial and near the entrance the stone base of an ancient cross: the north aisle contains a canopied niche and a double piscina, and the south aisle has also a piscina and retains traces of two recessed tombs: in the chancel is a brass of a former vicar (1525) in Eucharistic vestments: the walls of the nave and aisles bear traces of some ancient paintings: the font and a doorway on the north side are Norman; the former has a large fluted basin and some elaborate carved work: there are tablets of the early part of the last century to members of the Blancks family: in 1919 stained windows were inserted: the church was restored in 1876 at a cost of £1,400, and again in 1909, when the tower was repaired and the bells were also quarter-turned and rehung; during the course of the work an aumbry was uncovered in the south aisle and on the south side of the chancel the tympanum of a Norman door: also some 13th century stained glass in the chancel, which was cleaned and re-leaded: a memorial window was erected in 1912 in the north aisle to the memory of the Roberts family, and there is another to the memory of the Rev. John William Cruikshank, vicar 1904-16; there are 211 sittings.
Civil Registration
For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.
Bledlow was in Wycombe Registration District from 1837 to 1974
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Bledlow from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Bledlow (Holy Trinity))
Land and Property
The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Buckinghamshire is available to browse.
Maps
Online maps of Bledlow 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