Place:Haddenham, Buckinghamshire, England

Watchers
NameHaddenham
Alt namesNedrehamsource: Domesday Book (1985) p 43
TypeVillage, Civil parish
Coordinates51.767°N 0.917°W
Located inBuckinghamshire, England
See alsoAylesbury Rural, Buckinghamshire, Englandrural district of which the parish was a part 1894-1974
Aylesbury Vale, Buckinghamshire, Englandadminitrative district which the parish joined in 1974
source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
source: Family History Library Catalog

Haddenham was part of the Aylesbury Hundred and the Aylesbury Poor Law Union. The parish was located in the Aylesbury Rural District until 1974.

It is a large village with an estimated population in 2011 of more than 8000 and is also a civil parish within Aylesbury Vale district in Buckinghamshire, England. It is about 5 miles (8 km) south-west of Aylesbury and 2 miles (3 km) north-east of Thame.

Haddenham has an industrial area covering what was a small grass-strip airfield which continued to be operational for a number of years following World War 2, and a station on the main line from Birmingham to London Marylebone. Haddenham was without a railway station from 1963 to 1987.

Contents

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

The place-name "Haddenham" is derived from the Old English Hǣdanhām, "Hǣda's Homestead" or, perhaps Hǣdingahām, "the home of the Hadding tribe". It is possible that the first villagers were members of the Hadding tribe from Haddenham in Cambridgeshire. It may be that the first Anglo-Saxons to settle in the Vale of Aylesbury were followers of Cuthwulf, from Cottenham in Cambridgeshire, who, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, marched southwest to the Thames after routing the British at the Battle of Bedcanford in 571. The Domesday Book of 1086 records the manor as Hedreham. In 1142 it was recorded as Hedenham.


From the Norman conquest of England until the Dissolution of the Monasteries the Convent of St Andrew in Rochester, Kent held the manor. The Crown held the manor for the remainder of the reign of Henry VIII. Thereafter it passed to his daughter Elizabeth I.

The village had a Royal charter as a market town between 1294 and 1301. The market was short-lived because the influential manor of Thame objected to losing trade to Haddenham.

Haddenham is one of only three "wychert (or whitchet) villages" in England. Wychert is a method of building with a white clay mixed with straw to make walls and buildings, which are then thatched or topped with red clay tiles.

Haddenham was long a stronghold of radicalism and in particular of the Buckinghamshire Farm Labourers Union established in 1872 by Edward Richardson of Dinton.

Haddenham used to have several more pubs than today. The Anchor and the Eight Bells at Church End are now private houses. The Waggon and Horses in High Street was converted into the Peking Rendezvous Chinese restaurant, but closed in 2013. The Red Lion in Church End also closed in 2013. A developer applied for planning permission to demolish the Red Lion and replace it with housing, but in 2014 Aylesbury Vale District Council rejected the application.

In 1906 the Great Western Railway opened the railway through the parish, with Haddenham railway station to serve the village. In 1963 British Railways closed the station but kept the line open. In 1987 BR opened station at a new site, a few hundred yards west of the old one. The railway is part of what is now the Chiltern Main Line.

Haddenham is known nationally as one of only three wychert (or whitchet) villages. Wychert describes a method of walls of buildings using a white clay mixed with straw, which are then thatched or topped with red clay tiles. Wychert is also used to make decorate the walls with branches, leaves, flowers, etc. The town's Baptist and Methodist chapels re both of whitchet construction.

Haddenham is also renowned for its ponds which were used to breed Aylesbury ducks. Breeding has been revived recently on the pond in front of the parish church (dedicated to St Mary the Virgin, and of Norman origin).

Research Tips

Maps

  • An outline map of the current civil parishes of Buckinghamshire (post 1974 and omitting Milton Keynes unitary authority) is provided by the Boundaries Commission.
  • Another map which gives no source, appears to have been drawn to show the county in the late 19th century and labels the parishes directly. However, the map does not show towns and villages (unless they are parishes using the same name) and some parishes have been found to be missing from this map.
  • A map provided by the Open University (a British university based in Milton Keynes) gives the locations of the old civil parishes and the new communities that make up Milton Keynes. It can be expanded to read the labels.

Registration Offices

Birth, marriage and death certificates can now be ordered online from Buckinghamshire County Council. The full postal address is Buckinghamshire Register Office, County Hall, Walton Street, Aylesbury, HP20 1YU.

The Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies (County Hall, Walton Street, Aylesbury, HP20 1UU) holds

  • Church of England and Nonconformist churches including registers of baptism, marriage and burial.
  • Around 35,000 wills proved by the Archdeaconry of Buckingham.
  • County and District Councils (lists of councillors, minutes of meetings, etc).
  • Quarter and Petty Session courts.
  • Landed estates of families including the Aubrey-Fletchers, Hampdens, Carringtons and Fremantles.
  • Historic maps including OS, tithe and inclosure maps
  • A wide range of local history books, some for loan.
  • Pamphlets and articles of local history interest.
  • Local newspapers
  • Computers for access to family history resources like Ancestry and FreeBMD.
  • Published material is listed in the Library Catalogue.
  • Catalogues to some of our manuscript material is available through Access to Archives, part of The National Archives (TNA). Their database contains catalogues describing archives held locally in England and Wales and dating from the eighth century to the present day.

In Buckinghamshire, as with other counties in England and Wales, the location of offices where Births, Marriages and Deaths were registered has altered with other changes in local government. A list of the location of Registration Offices since civil registration began in 1837 has been prepared by GENUKI (Genealogy: United Kingdom and Ireland). The table also gives details of when each Registration Office was in existence. In the case of Buckinghamshire, the same registration offices were used for the censuses since 1851. Buckinghamshire now only has a central registration office at County Hall in Aylesbury, but there are facilities for registering births, marriages and deaths in specific libraries around the county.

Nineteenth Century Local Administration

English Jurisdictions is a webpage provided by FamilySearch which analyses every ecclesiastical parish in England at the year 1851. It provides, with the aid of outline maps, the date at which parish records and bishops transcripts begin, non-conformist denominations with a chapel within the parish, the names of the jurisdictions in charge: county, civil registration district, probate court, diocese, rural deanery, poor law union, hundred, church province; and links to FamilySearch historical records, FamilySearch Catalog and the FamilySearch Wiki. Two limitations: only England, and at the year 1851.

During the 19th century two bodies, the Poor Law Union and the Sanitary District, had responsibility for governmental functions at a level immediately above that covered by the civil parish. In 1894 these were replace by Rural and Urban Districts. These were elected bodies, responsible for setting local property assessments and taxes as well as for carrying out their specified duties. Thses districts continued in operation until 1974. Urban districts for larger municipalities were called "Municipal Boroughs" and had additional powers and obligations.

Poor Law Unions, established nationally in 1834, combined parishes together for the purpose of providing relief for the needy who had no family support. This led to the building of '"union poorhouses" or "workhouses" funded by all the parishes in the union. The geographical boundaries established for the individual Poor Law Unions were employed again when Registration Districts were formed three years later. In 1875 Sanitary Districts were formed to provide services such as clean water supply, sewage systems, street cleaning, and the clearance of slum housing. These also tended to follow the same geographical boundaries, although there were local alterations caused by changes in population distribution.

Online Historical References

  • GENUKI for Buckinghamshire provides a lot of material on the county history from a variety of aspects. The maps of the hundreds are reproduced from 19th century publications and show the topology as well as the locations of the various parishes. There is also a schematic map covering the whole county. GENUKI does not contain much information about the 20th century and beyond.
  • Local History Online provides a list of local historical organizations. Each of these societies and organizations has its own website.
  • The FamilySearch Wiki on Buckinghamshire explains the jurisdictions relating to civil affairs, parishes and probate (wills and testaments) for each parish in the county and also outlines when these jurisdictions were in existence. The data does not cover the post-1974 period.