Naphill is a village in the

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

of Hughenden Valley, in

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 ...

, England. It is north-west of Hughenden, on the ridge of one of the

Chiltern Hills The Chiltern Hills or the Chilterns are a chalk escarpment in southern England, located to the north-west of London, covering across Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire; they stretch from Goring-on-Thames in the south- ...

, and is adjacent to the village of Walter's Ash. The origin of its name is obscure. It is sometimes thought that people napped

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Historically, flint was widely used to make stone tools and start ...

s here, but this is disputed. Naphill is a mainly linear settlement, with nearly all the houses built on side-roads branching off Main Road, which is just over long. Naphill borders the ancient parishes of Bradenham, North Dean, and

West Wycombe West Wycombe is a small village and civil parish in Buckinghamshire, England, famed for its manor houses and its hills. It is west of High Wycombe. The historic village is largely a National Trust property and receives a large annual influx ...

. Whilst a village in its own right, it is part of the Parish of Hughenden, and is located around the former border between two ancient British tribes, the

Catuvellauni The Catuvellauni (Common Brittonic: *''Catu-wellaunī'', "war-chiefs") were a Celtic tribe or state of southeastern Britain before the Roman conquest, attested by inscriptions into the 4th century. The fortunes of the Catuvellauni and thei ...

and the

Atrebates The Atrebates (Gaulish: *''Atrebatis'', 'dwellers, land-owners, possessors of the soil') were a Belgic tribe of the Iron Age and the Roman period, originally dwelling in the Artois region. After the tribes of Gallia Belgica were defeated by Ca ...

. It is close to the ancient feature

Grimm's Ditch Grim's Ditch, Grim's Dyke (also Grimsdyke or Grimes Dike in derivative names) or Grim's Bank is a name shared by a number of prehistoric bank and ditch linear earthworks across England. They are of different dates and may have had different funct ...

. Walter's Ash in Naphill is the location of

RAF Strike Command The Royal Air Force's Strike Command was the military formation which controlled the majority of the United Kingdom's bomber and fighter aircraft from 1968 until 2007 when it merged with Personnel and Training Command to form the single Air ...

, which contains a nuclear bunker built on

National Trust The National Trust () is a heritage and nature conservation charity and membership organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Trust was founded in 1895 by Octavia Hill, Sir Robert Hunter and Hardwicke Rawnsley to "promote the ...

land in 1983–1985. This lies near the wartime Bomber Command bunker built in the 1930s. There was a

peace camp Peace camps are a form of physical protest camp that is focused on anti-war and anti-nuclear activity. They are set up outside military military base, bases by members of the peace movement who oppose either the existence of the military bases the ...

during the time of the construction of the nuclear bunker, and during that time two copies of the magazine The Angry Pacifist were produced.

Naphill Common

Naphill Common takes up a large part of Naphill, running the whole length of the village's west side. It is larger and more wooded than its neighbour, Downley Common. The Common contains evidence of an industrial background, including

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

iron

smelting Smelting is a process of applying heat and a chemical reducing agent to an ore to extract a desired base metal product. It is a form of extractive metallurgy that is used to obtain many metals such as iron-making, iron, copper extraction, copper ...

. Pieces of iron

slag The general term slag may be a by-product or co-product of smelting (pyrometallurgical) ores and recycled metals depending on the type of material being produced. Slag is mainly a mixture of metal oxides and silicon dioxide. Broadly, it can be c ...

have been found in the area, which was once semi-enclosed. Also pieces of pottery dated to the 12th to 15th centuries have been found turned up by rabbits. Naphill Common is home to several very large

beech Beech (genus ''Fagus'') is a genus of deciduous trees in the family Fagaceae, native to subtropical (accessory forest element) and temperate (as dominant element of Mesophyte, mesophytic forests) Eurasia and North America. There are 14 accepted ...

and

oak An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...

trees. One beech tree has grown on a medieval enclosure, the purposes of which enclosure is unknown because only three of its sides are visible. Most of the iron

kiln A kiln is a thermally insulated chamber, a type of oven, that produces temperatures sufficient to complete some process, such as hardening, drying, or Chemical Changes, chemical changes. Kilns have been used for millennia to turn objects m ...

s and pottery are to be found in this part of Naphill. Originally, Naphill Common was more open, with large trees separated by grass-covered open ground, rather than the dense wood that has grown up around it. Naphill Common is a

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain, or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland, is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle ...

.Natural England: SSSI citation
/ref>

References

External links

* Villages in Buckinghamshire {{Buckinghamshire-geo-stub