Chetwode () is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

about southwest of

Buckingham Buckingham ( ) is a market town in north Buckinghamshire, England, close to the borders of Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire, which had a population of 12,890 at the United Kingdom Census 2011, 2011 Census. The town lies approximately west of ...

in the

Aylesbury Vale The Aylesbury Vale (or Vale of Aylesbury) is a geographical region in Buckinghamshire, England, which is bounded by the City of Milton Keynes and West Northamptonshire to the north, Central Bedfordshire and the Borough of Dacorum (Hertfordshir ...

district of

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (, abbreviated ''Bucks'') is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-east, Hertfordshir ...

. The parish is bounded to the southwest and southeast by a brook called The Birne, which here also forms part of the county boundary with

Oxfordshire Oxfordshire ( ; abbreviated ''Oxon'') is a ceremonial county in South East England. The county is bordered by Northamptonshire and Warwickshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the east, Berkshire to the south, and Wiltshire and Glouceste ...

Etymology

The name ''Chetwode'' is first attested in a

charter A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified. It is implicit that the granter retains superiority (or sovereignty), and that the ...

of 949 (preserved in a seventeenth-century copy) as ''Cetwuda'', and then in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

of 1086 as ''Ceteode''. The first part of the name comes from the Brittonic word corresponding to modern Welsh ('wood'), expanded with the

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

word , of the same meaning.

Manor

There is a manor at Chetwode that stayed in the same family from the time of the

in 1086 through to the 1960s. The Domesday Book records that in 1086 Robert de Thain held the manor from

Odo Odo is a name typically associated with historical figures from the Middle Ages and before. Odo is etymologically related to the names Otho and Otto, and to the French name Odon and modern version Eudes, and to the Italian names Ottone and Udo; a ...

Bishop of Bayeux The Diocese of Bayeux and Lisieux (Latin: ''Dioecesis Baiocensis et Lexoviensis''; French: ''Diocèse de Bayeux et Lisieux'') is a Latin Church diocese of the Catholic Church in France. It is coextensive with the Department of Calvados and is a ...

Priory and parish church

In 1244 Sir Ralphe de Norwich founded an Augustinian

priory A priory is a monastery of men or women under religious vows that is headed by a prior or prioress. They were created by the Catholic Church. Priories may be monastic houses of monks or nuns (such as the Benedictines, the Cistercians, or t ...

at Chetwode. In 1460, owing to its poverty, the priory was dissolved and annexed to the nearby Notley Abbey (or "Nutley" Abbey) in

Long Crendon Long Crendon is a village and civil parish in west Buckinghamshire, England, about west of Haddenham and north-west of Thame in neighbouring Oxfordshire. The village has been called Long Crendon only since the English Civil War.Birch, 1975, p ...

. This led to the first recognition of Chetwode as a village rather than just a priory. The

Church of England parish church A parish church in the Church of England is the church which acts as the religious centre for the people within each Church of England parish (the smallest and most basic Church of England administrative unit; since the 19th century sometimes ...

Saint Mary Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under titles of Mary, mother of Jesus, various titles such as Perpetual virginity ...

and

Saint Nicholas Saint Nicholas of Myra (traditionally 15 March 270 – 6 December 343), also known as Nicholas of Bari, was an early Christian bishop of Greeks, Greek descent from the maritime city of Patara (Lycia), Patara in Anatolia (in modern-day Antalya ...

was once part of the Augustinian priory church. However the parish church had become ruinous in the 15th century and this building replaced it as the parish church in 1480. The stonework is a fine example of the work of the 13th century, particularly the

sedilia In church architecture, sedilia (plural of Latin ''sedīle'', "seat") are seats, typically made of stone, located on the liturgical south side of the altar—often within the chancel—intended for use by the officiating priest, deacon, an ...

, the east window of five lancets and the triple-lancet window on the south side, with stained glass of the 13th and 14th centuries. The 14th century north chapel later became the manor pew. A plan of the arrangements of the church and priory cloister in the 16th-century shows the development of Priory House.Maurice Howard, ''The Building of Elizabethan and Jacobean England'', (Yale, 2007), pp. 38–39.

Economic history

The parish's

common land Common land is collective land (sometimes only open to those whose nation governs the land) in which all persons have certain common rights, such as to allow their livestock to graze upon it, to collect wood, or to cut turf for fuel. A person ...

s were

enclosed Enclosure or inclosure is a term, used in English landownership, that refers to the appropriation of "waste" or "common land", enclosing it, and by doing so depriving commoners of their traditional rights of access and usage. Agreements to enc ...

by an Act of Parliament passed in 1812. In 1899 the

Great Central Railway The Great Central Railway in England was formed when the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway changed its name in 1897, anticipating the opening in 1899 of its Great Central Main Line, London Extension. On 1 January 1923, the company ...

opened its main line to London through the southwestern part of the parish. The nearest station was Finmere for Buckingham, which was just over the Oxfordshire county boundary on the main road between

and

Bicester Bicester ( ) is a market town and civil parish in the Cherwell district of Oxfordshire, England, north-west of Oxford. The town is a notable tourist attraction due to the Bicester Village shopping centre. The historical town centre � ...

and just over from Chetwode. The station was from Buckingham, more than from

Finmere Finmere is a village and civil parish in Oxfordshire, south of the River Great Ouse. It is on the county boundary with Buckinghamshire, almost west of Buckingham and just over east of Brackley in Northamptonshire. The 2011 Census recorded the ...

and was actually in

Shelswell Shelswell is a Hamlet (place), hamlet in the civil parish of Newton Purcell with Shelswell, in the Cherwell (district), Cherwell district, in the county of Oxfordshire, England. It is about south of Brackley in neighbouring Northamptonshire. ...

parish next to the village of

Newton Purcell Newton Purcell is a village in the civil parish of Newton Purcell with Shelswell, in the Cherwell district, in the county of Oxfordshire, England, southeast of Brackley in neighbouring Northamptonshire. The 2001 Census recorded a parish popu ...

. In about 1922 the Great Central renamed the station Finmere.

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. Originally a trading brand of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Comm ...

ways closed the station in 1963 and the line in 1966. The route of

High Speed 2 High Speed 2 (HS2) is a high-speed railway which has been under construction in England since 2019. The line's planned route is between Handsacre – in southern Staffordshire – and London, with a Spur line, branch to Birmingham. HS2 is to ...

follows the old Great Central line route through the parish.

References

Sources and further reading