Re-living the Good Old Days in Old Amersham, Amersham, England

It was thanks to the friendly bus driver that I discovered that Amersham is a town of two parts, Old Amersham and Amersham-on-the-Hill. Had I got off at the station as I intended I would have had a long walk to the old town.

As the name suggests Old Amersham, in Buckinghamshire, was the original settlement and for hundreds of years it was under the sway of the Drake family family, a dynasty of Lords of the Manor of Amersham. Old Amersham is littered with testaments to their influence here but, perhaps the greatest gift was bequeathed by Thomas Tyrwhitt-Drake in the 1840s. He opposed the building of the London-Birmingham railway through the Misbourne Valley because it would have spoilt his view from Shardeloes, his ancestral home. Old Amersham Old Amersham was not touched by the Victorian development that accompanied the arrival of the railway in other towns. Today it thrives as an example of pre-Victorian history. Ironically, my bus did not go through the town so I started my exploration at the far end of the High Street.

The generous width of the High Street reflects the its medieval tradition of weekly markets and an annual fair, rights granted by King John in 1200. It is still possible to distinguish the long, thin plots known as burgages, on the south side of the High Street which were rented to tradesmen. Their houses were at the front of these plots lining the street. Behind the houses the plots were used for workshops, livestock and cultivation. The south side was controlled by the borough and residents could vote for two Members of Parliament to which the borough was entitled. The Lord of the Manor therefore made sure this was an area of good repute in order to reap votes for family members. Today this area is a popular residential area featuring some lovely farm building conversions and cottages. ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).