Hartwell, Buckinghamshire
Historical Description
Hartwell, a parish in Bucks, 2½ miles SW from Aylesbury, which is the nearest railway station. It includes all but one cottage of the hamlet of Sedrup, and its post town and telegraph office is Aylesbury; money order office, Stone. Acreage, 918; population, 118. The manor belonged to the De Hertwells, the Lutons, the Stokeses, the Singletons, and the Hampdens, and passed in the 14th century to the Lees. The lord of the manor is sole landowner. Hartwell House is an old edifice, considerably modernized; was the residence in 1810-14 of Louis XVIII. and his family; usually, with the out-buildings, accommodated about 140 persons during the time of Louis's residence; is hid from the view of persons on the high road by a screen of superb trees; contains many memorials of Louis's family, and of distinguished persons who visited them; and contains also a museum, a fine geological collection, a large quantity of manuscripts, and some interesting pictures. A history of it by Admiral Smyth fills two large 4to vols., entitled "des Hartwellianse." The geology of the parish and its neighbourhood is very interesting. There are also several springs, and over one of them is an Egyptian temple, erected after a design by Bonomi, with inscriptions by Mr Birch of the British Museum. The living is a rectory, now united with the vicarage of the adjoining parish of Stone by an Order in Council, in 1892, and is in the diocese of Oxford. The church was built in 1756, is octagonal, on the model of the chapter-house at York, has two square towers, and bears in the east window the arms of the Hampdens, the Lees, and the Harcourts. The only charities are the interest of £117, the value of plate left by Louis XVIII., and given to the parish, and the interest of £112 13s. 4d. left by Mrs. Cecilia Lee.
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 | Hartwell 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 1551.
Churches
Church of England
The Assumption of the Virgin Mary (parish church)
The parish church, which is named in honour of The Assumption of the Virgin Mary, and stands in Hartwell Park, was rebuilt, on the old foundations, after the model of the chapter-house at York, by Sir William Lee, 4th bart. his uncle, Sir William Lee kt. P.C. Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, who contributed £1,000, and his uncle Sir George Lee kt. P.C., LL.D. who gave £500; the structure, completed in 1756, is an octagon, of fine stone, with square towers on the east and west, the former constituting the chancel and the latter serving, as a vestibule: there are 3 bells: in the east window are shields of the arms of the Hampden, Lee and Harcourt families, and at the intersections of the mullions the crests of Ramsden and Lee: a memorial window was erected by the Misses Lee in memory of their eldest brother, Lee Percival Lee, who died at Versailles; there is another to John Lee LL.D. who died Feb. 25th, 1866; one placed in 1899 by Col. E. D. Lee J.P. and his sisters to their mother, and one to Col. E. D. Lee J.P. inserted 1911 by Mrs. Goodall and Miss Lee: the ceiling, richly ornamented with tracery, it a splendid piece of workmanship in imitation of that of King's College, Cambridge: the font is of marble, on a wooden pedestal, and the pulpit and reading desk are of oak: the church affords 80 sittings.
Civil Registration
Hartwell was in Aylesbury Registration District from 1837 to 1974
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Hartwell from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Hartwell (St. Mary))
Land and Property
The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Buckinghamshire is available to browse.
Maps
Online maps of Hartwell 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:
Villages, Hamlets, &c
SedrupVisitations Heraldic
A full transcript of the Visitation of Buckinghamshire, 1634 is online