Section 5 Denner Hill

 

We return to the Prestwood boundary by going back up the road to Hampden to where the boundary follows a minor track up the steep side of Denner Hill.  The fields here were until recently owned and farmed by the late Thomas Ives, a Knight of the Shire, who also had many fields on the east side of Prestwood Common.  They are all devoted to crops, including two large fields that have only just been cleared of woodland, one of which (which still has the name of Underwood) we cross to get to Newhouse Farm.  The other wood (Newhouse Wood) was on the far side of the farm on the down-slope to the west, so the farm until recently occupied a narrow clearing of two fields' width between the woods on the crest of the hill, a very secluded position.  At the farm are a large pond, orchard and small pasture.  It has just been taken over by Arnold Davis (c1819), the son of Richard Davis who, as we have seen, owns over 200 acres in Prestwood, although his own farm is at Kingsash, near The Lee, and he came originally from Berkshire.  Arnold farms 110 acres here, employing four labourers.  His wife Mary Ann is from Wokingham and they have four children all under six, the youngest only just born.  They have two servants, Simeon Slaughter (1839) and Joseph Janes (1837).  Thomas Ives used to own and farm all this land until he died around 1840.  Then farmer John West (49) took this farm over and lived here with his wife, seven children and a servant.  He has now moved to the farm in Prestwood where we met him earlier.

Going back down to the road, and proceeding north along the valley bottom, we pass on the right the narrow end of a Richard Davis field farmed by Joseph Biggs (Long Field) rising steeply up the hill butcultivated below, followed by a field parallel to the road, Mead’s (or May's) Garden, also tilled by Biggs, but belonging to Jane Baker.  Above lies Meadsgarden Wood, split from Longfield Wood to the south by the side valley we came down from Peterley. 

 

Mead's Garden, with Meadsgarden Wood running along the top, Longfield Wood in the distance

 

To the north Meadsgarden Wood becomes White Hill Wood, similarly named after the field below, which we now travel beside, although we are separated by a narrow plantation of pines which marks the site of a spring, one of the few remaining of all those down this valley that led to its early settlement in Anglo-Saxon times.  This is now Carrington land and a detached part of John West’s tenancy, but westwards, on the side and top of Denner Hill is still Baker land, once cultivated by John Allen but now by the Davis family.  The fir plantation curves behind a couple of houses by the side of the road here, all that there is of the tiny community of Stony Green.

                           The first is a double cottage, only built about 1840.  Here live a widow lace-maker Esther Smith (1790), an unmarried son Edward (1824) and a married son James (1813), both farm labourers.  James and his wife Sarah, who is from Oxfordshire, have one daughter at home, Sarah (1833), who is a lace-maker like her mother-in-law.  In 1841 Esther lived alone here and the other cottage was occupied by a shoemaker, James Ives. 

Stonygreen Cottages [2000]

Stonygreen Beer-house (now Farm, 2000)

 

The larger house just past them is a beer-house The Plough , owned by Wheeler and Sons and run by Francis Free (1817), whose primary occupation is making wooden lasts (moulds of feet) for shoemakers.  He and his wife have four children, the two eldest again being lace-makers like their mother.  In 1841 a timber dealer, David Cartwright lived here (now at Boss Lane Farmabove).

The Hughenden/Great Missenden boundary comes down here from Nanfans at Prestwood (having followed the Brands Fee boundary) and then turns sharply back up along the road we are following.  This boundary from Nanfans was established in Anglo-Saxon times and is marked by an ancient double hedgerow with many large trees.  A track follows it all the way to Prestwood. 

 

Old Boundary Hedge from Nanfans

 

As we carry on up the road Missenden parish now lies on the right, Hughenden on the left.  After Stony Green there is a narrow strip of woodland (Clay Markins Wood) remaining from the once extensive woodland all along this side of the valley.  Above it is an arable field given the same name, followed to the north by more crops in Middle Markins, which comes down to the road.  Above both on the crest of the slope is a wood called Stocklands Furze, with a similar area known as Middle Hill Furze above that, an area that was once cleared for pasture and then abandoned to grow up as gorse scrub and is now woodland again.  After Middle Markins field the road is again bordered by woodland (Long Markins), with Long Markins field sandwiched between it and the rest of Clay Markins Wood.  This area of woodland once stretched half way to Nanfans [now all part of Nanfan Wood].  The lower fields and woods near the road are part of Lord Carrington’s land and the fields are farmed by Thomas West.  The old woodlands (and regenerating woods) above (Nanfans Wood) are all part of Mary Mayhew’s land.

 

Clay Markins Wood (with the older Nanfan Wood clearly separated behind) with Middle and Long Markens fields below

 

A track comes down from Nanfans through an area of scrub (furze) at the end of these woods [Hangings Lane].

Hangings Lane at its north-east end near Nanfans [early C20th]

 

On the south side of this track is an area of scrub, the Hangings, which reaches almost to Nanfans.  Here the trees were felled a few decades ago and sown to crops, but it has been abandoned as Stocklands and Middle Hill Furzes were.  Land north of the track has long been cleared for fields as part of the Nanfan farm, except alongside the Hampden Road, where the steep slope is still wooded (Eldridge Grove), but this is again Carrington land.  All the way up Hampden Road from before the track up the Hangings we have been following the western boundary of the new Prestwood Parish.  On the left hand side a road (Rolls Lane) goes up to the top of Denner Hill and this marks the northern boundary of an extension of Prestwood Parish that includes the settlements on the hill and down to the valley on the other side.  Here it follows the Hughenden/Hampden civil parish boundaries.  ["Roles's", "Rolls" or "Rose" Lane has also been applied to what is now Hampden Road where it runs below Denner Hill.]

To carry on our perambulation we go up this lane, through the crop fields of John Allen, leased from Jane Baker, until we get to a couple of small pastures owned by Thomas West, where we reach the crest of this steep hill.  Ahead is Denner Hill Common, an extension of the large Hampden Common that lies north of the lane and reaches as far as Hampden Row, the small hamlet south of Hampden House.  Unlike the public commons at Prestwood and Great Kingshill, this is owned by Edward Grubb, although the few residents here have rights of common to pasture and water stock, collect firewood, etc.  The open part of the common we now enter has several ponds. 

The part that descends the western side of the hill, however, is all wooded (Dennerhill Coppice) and still coppiced for fence stakes, handles and so on.  At the bottom is a track up the valley, Bryants Bottom, that marks the western boundary of Prestwood Parish.  We go due west across the open common towards the wood to visit an isolated double cottage [Denner Farm] in a small enclosure owned by Sarah Mayhew.  This is currently occupied as a single house by John Young (1797), a retired rope-maker from Oxfordshire, who has sufficient income to employ a servant, 14-year-old Thomas Cross from Wycombe.  Before he came the cottages were occupied by a labourer, Thomas Martin (c1819) and his family, and a widow Ann Charge (c1809) with five children aged from 2 to 25.  Neither of these families remain in the parish, however.

Returning to the east side of the common and going south we pass a few cottages in small enclosures at the edge.  The first enclosure is mostly orchard with two houses.  Farm-worker John Bristow (1821) lives in one house [Weathercock], from which he also sells beer.  He and his wife have no children, but have a lodger, Joseph Aldridge (1817), another labourer.  In the neighbouring, more recent, house is the family of farm labourer Richard Fountain (1790).  His wife Jane (1796) is a mistress at the new school down in Prestwood.  She comes from Princes Risborough.  When first married they lived at West Wycombe, and moved here a few years ago.  They have three children at home aged 10 to 15.  The two daughters are lace-makers and the 12-year-old son is an errand boy.  They also have lodgers – Fanny Puddiford (1798), a widow lace-maker from Oxfordshire, and her son-in-law Daniel Turner (1824), a sawyer from Princes Risborough, who is a young widower.  Behind the houses is a crop-field, part of the John Allen holdings from Jane Baker that extend down the east side of Denner Hill as far as Newhouse Farm.  In 1841 the residents at these houses were carpenter William Martin (c1809), his wife and seven children aged 2 to 15, and widow Elizabeth Egerton (c1819) with four children aged 1 to 10.  (William's father was a local labourer John Martin (1780), who is now too old to work and lives in Wycombe Union Workhouse at Saunderton.  Before that he lived in the Green Man cottages in Prestwood.)

 

The largest of the Denner Hill Common ponds [2000]

 

After a piece of unenclosed common, backed by pasture, and with a large pond for washing carts as well as watering stock, there is another enclosure projecting into the common with two cottages.  The first is part of Baker’s land and is occupied by another farm worker, William Slaughter (1809) from Great Hampden.  His wife is from Chinnor and they have two children, aged 1 and 3.  They have only lived here a couple of years, having previously been at Saunderton.  Before them Joseph and Rebecca Adams lived here, it having been where Joseph’s uncle William had earlier lived.  They now live at Honor End Cottage with his parents (see above).

 

Rickyard Cottage [2000]

 

At the second house [Rickyard Cottage], owned by Joseph Cartwright, lives Joseph Saunders (1790), a former stone-cutter who now works as a labourer on the roads.  He and his wife have three single daughters in their twenties still at home, working at lace-making, an unmarried 20-year-old son who works as a cutter of Denner Hill stone, and a 16-year-old daughter.  They also care for the son’s newborn baby girl.  They have another son Daniel who is married and also works as a stonecutter.  He lives nearby in Bryants Bottom (see below).  The Saunders have lived here well over ten years.  Stone-working is centred on Denner Hill, although the majority of men engaged in it live just outside the parish boundary at the little communities of Piggots and North Dean, where six stonecutters have their homes.  They remain very separate from the Prestwood and Kingshill communities, recruiting no people from there to this specialist trade.  It is only possible to work the stone for a few years because the dust gradually obstructs the lungs and brings on a disease similar to silicosis, which is why Joseph is now retired from the work, which he has passed on to his sons.

 

Dennerhill Farm (2000)

 

After this house a farm track funnels off the common and across it lies the large Dennerhill Farm, the home of Edward Davis (1820), the brother of Arnold at Newhouse Farm.  He has 144 acres and employs nine labourers.  He also has four servants, all from distant places.  The Davis’s have only recently occupied this farm, which in 1841 was the home of farmer John Allen who moved back to the Hampshire/Berkshire area from which he originated, where he always maintained other farm holdings and where most of his family lived.  The farm is mostly arable, with an orchard behind the house.

Dennerhill Farm dates back to 1670, although altered in the next century and extended around about 1800.  It was built on an L-plan, the front wing of flint with brick and an old brick chimney, the rear wing, built last, of Denner Hill stone.  The rear wing has doors to coal- and wood-sheds on one side and to the farmyard on the other, and contains stable bays, harness room, chaff store and loft.  Adjoining barns were built in 1803 and 1804, also of Denner Hill stone, providing a total of nine bays.

We can take a glimpse of what they produce at Denner Hill Farm, typical of the mixed Chiltern farming of the area.  [I am grateful to the late Mr Rex Davis for the loan of an accounts book from this farm for around 1850.]  They keep a small number of cattle, about 65 sheep (mostly for wool), and a few pigs.  The farm is also known for its breeding of horses.  A traditional rotational system is used, with grass and vetches sown for the resting phase, followed by winter animal feed in the form of swedes and turnips, and in the third year by crops like peas, beans, oats, wheat and barley.  Hay is also harvested.  The main crop appears to be oats, with wheat next most important, and barley only in a small quantity.  The land rent is about £120 annually, which implies considerable effort to produce enough to make a profit, with a ton of oats fetching about £80 and a ton of wheat about twice that amount.  Sheep cost £1.35 a head, heifers £5 and horses over £10.  They sell produce as far away as Aylesbury (oats), Rickmansworth (oats) and London (sheep).  The farmyard shelters an assortment of chickens, geese and turkeys as well as a few pigs and the farm cat [Davis (2004)].

Some of the costs of setting up a new house are indicated in the farm accounts by such items as “two feather beds £8-5s-0d”, “2 pairs of blankets £2-8s-6d”, “2 counterpanes £1-12s-6d”, “one table £1-3s-0d” and (that essential item for any serious farmer with one eye on the weather) “one barometer £1-4s-0d”.  There is some rent received for land where they mine Denner Hill stone, a valuable supplement to farming in this region [see Robinson (1993), p19].

An exhaustive inventory of the possessions at Denner Hill Farm [again I am grateful to Mr Rex Davis for permission to view this] reveals that this family lives in some style.  The parlour is carpeted and is obviously a room of good size, kept for special occasions or important visitors, as it contains eight rosewood chairs, two easy chairs, one sofa, a loo table, a Pembroke table (small table with hinged flaps), a dining table, a small writing desk and that barometer.  It is equipped with a great deal of china and glassware, as well as wines and spirits (gin, rum and brandy).  The sitting room is also large with 12 chairs, 2 tables, dresser, bureau, a kitchen range (with bellows), plus more equipment such as cutlery, ten brass candlesticks, a clock and a birdcage.  The “sitting room” has its own oven separate from the kitchen, as the family eat separately from the servants, whereas smaller farmers normally eat round the same table in the kitchen with the farm labourers.

With four domestic servants, the kitchen, too, is of substantial size, holding three tables, six chairs, and two garden chairs, with a spacious fireplace for cooking.  There is a scullery, and the larder is well stocked, including 8 wine casks containing 150 gallons of wine, valued at £30.  And if that might not be sufficient quantity of wine to last a lengthy siege, then there are a further 8 wine casks with 60 gallons in the cellar!  Two of the three main bedrooms are equipped with four-poster beds, the third with an “elliptic” bed, two dressing tables and seven chairs.  The “servants’ bedroom” had two “stump” bedsteads and a featherbed, but little else except rugs and blankets.  (Stump bedsteads have short bedposts and no surrounding drapery for privacy.)  [Eveleigh (2002) states that in southern England the custom of “unmarried farm-workers or servants lodged with the farmers … had largely died out by the beginning of Victoria’s reign”, but that is ostensibly not the case here and the evidence of the 1851 census is that this was the normal custom on almost all the farms in Prestwood at this time.]  It is obvious in the meticulous records he keeps that Edward Davis had great pride in his possessions and living conditions – his house is (in common with all the larger farmhouses) kept spotlessly clean, even the walls of the working rooms whitewashed and the stone floors regularly scrubbed.

Pride of place in this inventory, however, goes to a fully itemised list of books, amounting to 155 altogether, ranging from the Bible in prime position, through various religious books, practical books (cookery, “physic”, veterinary arts, Johnson’s dictionary, ready reckoner), poetry (Byron, Pope), textbooks (history, geography), biographies and essays.  The social gap between this household and that of the farm labourer or servant coming from a small two-room cottage is huge.  It also represents a rise in status of the largest and more ambitious farmers to rival the “respectability” of the urban middle class and large rural landowners, a phenomenon that is new and typically Victorian.

Below the farm the common land (here referred to as Widenton Hill) stretches right down to the Bryants Bottom road, but part of it, which is not marked by any boundary, belongs to Lord Carrington, and the southernmost quarter, reaching almost to the level of Newhouse Farm, still belongs to the Hampden estate, the original owners of the whole of this land.  If you carry on south along the top edge of the common you eventually arrive again at the isolated Newhouse farm.  From Dennerhill Farm, however, we cross the common westwards down the slope to the valley bottom to a couple of enclosures owned by John Montague.  Here two new double cottages built in the late 1830s face one another across the road going south to Hughenden Valley and Wycombe, the start of what may be a new settlement at Bryants Bottom. 

The one on the west side of the road [Well Cottage] is occupied by two labourer families who have both lived here for over ten years, from the time the houses were built.  William Lancaster (Lankester) (1794) and his wife Esther (1811), a lace-maker, have three lace-maker daughters and a young son at home.  William was born in Monks Risborough.  Thomas Montague (1825) and his wife have no children but take a lodger.  Before him, his brother Richard lived here.  They are sons of John Montague, who was once the farmer at Piggotts on top of the hill that rises behind the cottages, but has now moved to Lower Warren Farm.  In 1841 stonecutter William Ives (then in his 30s) lived here as well.

In one of the facing cottages at Bryants Bottom [Ivy Cottage] lives Daniel Saunders (1821), the son of Joseph we have just visited on Denner Hill.  He is a stonecutter like his brother James.  He and his wife Martha have a newborn daughter, their first child.  Before him another stonecutter occupied this cottage, Joseph Newport (then in his late 30s) and his family, along with an apprentice stonecutter John Bristow (then just 12).  Next door is widow Mary Bignal (1801) with two teenage daughters, all lace-makers from Great Hampden.  Mary’s labourer husband Richard died several years ago and three older daughters have married.

We have now reached the end of our perambulation around the parish with the croplands of Culveston Farm, land owned by the Earl of Buckinghamshire, rising up Piggotts Hill to the west, crowned by Piggotts Wood which screens the little cluster of cottage around Piggotts Farm .  The farmer is John Cartwright (1791), a widower assisted by four unmarried children – William (1823), Eliza (1828), Mary Ann (1833), and John (1835).  They manage 96 acres with the help of five labourers.  Another son, 12-year-old Amos, works as a tailor.  They moved from a farm at Princes Risborough and first occupied Lower Warren Farm in 1837.  Near the farm are cottages belonging to a bricklayer, a stonecutter, three farm-workers, and an unemployed labourer.  The wood is actively worked for furniture (bodgers) and larger timber.

The outlines of an old saw-pit in Piggotts Wood show up well in the snow [2004]