Fingest, Buckinghamshire
Historical Description
Fingest, a parish in Bucks, contiguous to Oxfordshire, 3 miles from West Wycombe station on the G.W.R., and 7 N from Henley. Post town, Henley-on-Thames; money order and telegraph office, Hambleden. Acreage, 1285; population of the civil parish, 364; of the ecclesiastical, with Ibstone, 330. The manor was anciently called Thinghurst, and belonged to St Alban's abbey. The bishops of Lincoln had a palace here, and Bishop Burghersh was buried here. The living is a rectory, united with the rectory of Ibstone, in the diocese of Oxford; joint net value, £235 with residence. Patron, alternately the Bishop of Oxford and Merton College, Oxford. The church has been beautifully restored.
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 | Fingest St. Bartholomew | |
Hundred | Desborough | |
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 1607.
Churches
Church of England
St. Bartholomew (parish church)
The parish church of St. Bartholomew is an ancient stone building in the Norman and Early English styles, consisting of chancel, nave, south porch and a western tower containing 1 bell: the tower is Norman and has a 14th century double-gabled roof: between the nave and chancel is a carved pine screen with a pediment supported by Corinthian pilasters; the Perpendicular font has an octagonal basin on a modern base: the chancel was restored in 1849: there are 130 sittings.
Civil Registration
Fingest was in Wycombe Registration District from 1837 to 1974
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Fingest from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Fingest, or Finghurst (St. Bartholomew))
Land and Property
The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Buckinghamshire is available to browse.
Maps
Online maps of Fingest 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