Iver (St. Peter)

IVER (St. Peter), a parish, in the union of Eton, hundred of Stoke, county of Buckingham, 2½ miles (S. S. W.) from Uxbridge; containing 1948 inhabitants. This place had formerly a market, granted to Lord Neville in 1351, and confirmed in 1461, together with an additional grant of two fairs, to the Dean and Canons of Windsor; the market has been long discontinued, and only a small pleasure-fair is now held, on the 10th of July. The parish comprises 6269a. 2r. 12p.; the surface is varied, and the lower grounds are watered by the river Colne, on which is an extensive flour-mill. A considerable traffic in grain is carried on by the Grand Junction canal, which passes to the east of the village; and the Great Western railway intersects the parish. The living is a perpetual curacy, valued in the king's books at £13. 16. 8.; net income, £115; patrons and impropriators, the family of Sullivan. The church is much admired for the simplicity and beauty of its architecture, and is evidently of great antiquity; it contains several interesting monuments. There is a place of worship for Independents. A free school, supposed to have been founded about 1688, by Robert Bowyer, who endowed it with a fee-farm rent of £21. 11. 9½., was enlarged by donations from Lord Gambier and others, in 1823, and is now conducted on the national plan: there is also a girls' school, and the two establishments are carried on in a building erected by subscription in memory of the late Rev. E. Ward, thirty-one years minister of Iver. Bequests amounting to £108 per annum are distributed in coal, bread, and blankets. Queen Elizabeth occasionally resided at Rycots, now a farmhouse surrounded by a moat. There is also a house at Richings, in the parish, formerly in the possession of the Duchess of Somerset, and the resort of Pope and the wits of that age: an adjoining walk is known by the name of Pope's Walk. Oliver Cromwell resided at Thorney.