History of Prestwood Common

Prestwood Common lay on the west side of Great Missenden parish adjacent to its boundary with Hughenden (or Hitchenden) parish. The western edge of the common extended from Collings Hanger Farm to Nanfans Grange, the northern boundary followed what is now Mote Lane, the eastern boundary is now marked by Nairdwood Lane and the southern boundary was approximately where Lodge Lane now runs. A track running north from Knives Farm where the road from Chepping Wycombe ended, crossed the Common and continued to Honor End with branches to the east towards Great Missenden.  At 650 feet above sea level the area was one of the highest inhabited parts of the Chilterns.

August 1850 Enclosure of the Common

Situated just outside the western boundary, in Hughenden parish, were a number of houses with land which bordered the Common and which were approached from it. One of these houses was the property of Miss Caroline Vincent Mayhew and in August 1850 she acquired, under the provisions of the General Inclosure Acts, a piece of common land between the eastern boundary of her property and the track from Knives Farm to Honor End.  This land, in area estimated to be ‘two roods and twenty one perches’ [1] gave her property a frontage on what became a public road from Wycombe to Missenden.

Miss Caroline Mayhew had inherited this property the previous year from her aunt, Miss Mary Mayhew, who died in 1848.  She did not occupy the house herself (she lived at Loudwater) but leased it to tenants [2].  The house had already been long established, probably since 1710, but one story dates it from the seventeenth century when it was known as the Roundhouse and is said to have been used by Oliver Cromwell at the time of the Civil War.  The addition of a small piece of the Common increased the area of the land attached to the property to about eight acres.  For this additional piece of land (something over half an acre) Miss Mayhew paid the Inclosure Commissioners the sum of £22, entitling her to the “only proper use and behoof . . . . for ever” of the said piece of land. (see attachment below)

This sum seems trivial today but it is put in perspective by the tenancy agreement which Miss Mayhew drew up in February 1851 with Thomas West [3] , to whom she granted a fourteen year lease of her property at an annual rent of £30.  Hence, the purchase price paid to the Inclosure Commissioners was equivalent in value to three quarters of a year’s rent that was payable for a substantial house and several acres of land.  Today, that rent would amount to tens of thousands of pounds a year.  Thomas West had to pay his rent in equal proportions twice a year, on Lady Day and at Michaelmas.

This piece of land bordering Wycombe Road lies on the north side of what is now a lane opposite the junction with Sixty Acres Road which extends to the footpath leading to Stony Green.

1864-1867

Shortly after completing his purchase, Henry Redrup took out a mortgage on the property with Richard Horwood, a farmer from Drayton Beauchamp near Tring, for £200 at an interest rate of 5% per annum.  So, Henry Redrup was then receiving £30 a year in rent and was paying £10 a year in interest.  This remained the situation until December 1864 when Henry Redrup took out an additional mortgage with Richard Horwood for £100 at the same interest rate as before.  By this time Thomas West’s lease would have just about expired and there is no evidence of it having been renewed or of another tenant being found.  Henry Redrup would have lost his rental income and at the same time had increased his interest payments to £15 a year.

It seems probable that Henry Redrup himself took up residence in the property from then on.  However, he still appears to have been short of funds because two years later, in January 1867, he increased his mortgage with Richard Horwood by another £100 and also obtained a mortgage of £60 from Archibald White, a gentleman of Great Missenden.  The total loans secured on the property now amounted to £460 all at 5% interest per annum.  None of the mortgage agreements made any provision for repayment of the capital and they all appear to have been indefinite arrangements provided that the annual interest was paid when due.  However, two years later everything changed when Henry Redrup sold out to the Reverend Thomas Evetts, and repaid his loans but continued to live in the house as a tenant.

The Reverend Thomas Evetts was at that time Rector of Monks Risborough.  He owned other properties in the area and was well known as the first vicar of Prestwood from the time of the consecration of the new parish church in 1849 until he moved to Monks Risborough in 1864.  He had been the principal benefactor of the new church, having donated more than £3,000 towards the building costs and provided the land, from his purchase of Knives Farm, on which to build it.

Henry Redrup’s financial position does not appear to have been very robust.  He sold to Thomas Evetts, who already owned the adjoining property to the north, for £700 but had to repay loans plus outstanding interest to Richard Horwood of £440 – 5s – 9d and to Archibald White of £70 – 5s – 4d, leaving him with just £189 – 8s – 11d of his original £650 investment in the property of over twelve years before. His net return from the property for the nine years of the lease to Thomas West was only £20 per year.

September 1873

In September 1873 Thomas Evetts sold the property, that was still leased to Henry Redrup, to Charles Townsend who also owned the adjoining property to the south.  Charles Townsend, a gentleman from Great Kingshill together with David Clarke, a gentleman from High Wycombe, paid £845 for the property. A plan of the property at this time shows the ‘two roods and twenty one perches’ that Caroline Mayhew acquired from the Inclosure Commissioners, to be described as ‘arable’.  Other plots of land comprising the property were described as either pasture, orchard or garden.

Charles Wood took out a mortgage for £1,000 with the Friends Provident Institution of Bradford at 5% per annum (the interest rate for mortgages and loans seems to have been stable for nearly fifty years) which was redeemed within two years when the property was sold yet again.  One of the trustees of the Friends Provident Institution who signed the mortgage deed was a John Stephenson Rowntree [5], gentleman, of York.

The conveyance of the property from Charles Wood to Alan Cameron Gardner, gentleman, of Lee near Great Missenden, in November 1897, contains the first record of the property being referred to as ‘The Chestnuts’.  It seems that Charles Wood had ceased to be a ‘cornice, pole and blind manufacturer’ and was now a ‘gentleman’ living at ‘The Chestnuts’.  Alan Gardner paid £2,100 for the property which meant that Charles Wood had seen a 40% rise in its value in under two years.

A New Century

‘The Chestnuts’ now entered one of its more stable periods of ownership and was not to come on the market again for fifty five years.  Alan Gardner died, at sea, in October 1934 but the property passed to his wife, Agnes, who continued to live there until her death in May 1951.  During this time some improvements were made to the property, notably the building of a ‘gardener’s cottage’ known as ‘Little Chestnuts’.  Many of the large trees that surround the property today and which can be seen from Wycombe Road were probably planted by the Gardners. An aerial photograph taken in 1945 and now viewable on Google Earth shows what was the ‘two roods and twenty-one perches’ to have been completely wooded at that time.

There were some legal complications on Agnes Gardner’s death because although ‘The Chestnuts’ was bequeathed to her by her husband and she had been granted probate as his sole executrix, she did not fully administer his will.  Therefore, when she died, Letters of Administration were obtained by the National Provincial Bank who, acting as vendors, sold the property to Freda Bruce Lockhart, of Holland Street, Kensington, who immediately and in the same transaction sold to Albert Hayman and his wife, also Freda. Curiously, Freda Bruce Lockhart paid £5,750 but the Haymans only paid £5,000.  The involvement of Freda Bruce Lockhart is unclear, nor is it apparent why she appears to lose £750.  This is the same Freda Bruce Lockhart who frequently broadcast on the radio in the 1950’s as a film critic. The transaction was completed in October 1952 and included both the main house and ‘Little Chestnuts’.

The text in the document is reproduced below:

References from the Text

[1] 2 roods and 21 perches = 101 perches = 0.63 acre.

[2] Keen, D.J. Prestwood Historical Guide, The Prestwood Society, states occupant in 1850 to be James Watson ‘spirit merchant in London’.

[3] Ibid, Until 1850 Thomas West ‘farmer and also a jeweller in London’ was the tenant of  Nanfans Grange, also owned by Miss Mayhew.

[4] Ibid. A bakery belonging to Jesse Redrup is described in Kiln Road.

[5] John Stephenson Rowntree (1834–1907) was a Director of Rowntree’s, the York confectionery company.

Next: 1850-1900 Prestwood