Fingest

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Fingest
Fingest Church.JPG
St Bartholomew's Church Fingest
Buckinghamshire UK location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Fingest
Location within Buckinghamshire
OS grid reference SU777912
Civil parish
Unitary authority
Ceremonial county
Region
Country England
Sovereign state United Kingdom
Post town HENLEY-ON-THAMES
Postcode district RG9
Dialling code 01491
Police Thames Valley
Fire Buckinghamshire
Ambulance South Central
UK Parliament
List of places
UK
England
Buckinghamshire
51°36′51″N0°52′37″W / 51.614232°N 0.876955°W / 51.614232; -0.876955

Fingest is a village in Buckinghamshire, England. [1] It is in the Chiltern Hills near the border with Oxfordshire. It is about six miles WSW of High Wycombe. It lies in the civil parish of Hambleden.

Contents

The parish church of St Bartholomew's dates from the early Norman period. It has an unusual tower, with a double vaulted roof. The church is a Grade I listed building. [2]

Name

Name history

Toponym

Fingest : ( Ting..hurst , Tyn..hurst ) 11-13th cent. [3]

The name is a hybrid of Old Norse and Old English.

The first element ' ting ' or ' tyn ' is from Old Norse Þing - ( ' thing' ) ( ” assembly place ” ). [lower-alpha 2] [lower-alpha 3] [lower-alpha 4] [lower-alpha 5]

The next element ” hurst ” is from Old English ” hyrst ” ( ” wood or wooded hill ” ). [4] [lower-alpha 6]

History

The ancient parish of Fingest included Cadmore End to the north of the village, which became a separate ecclesiastical parish in 1852. [7]

The manor of Fingest anciently belonged to St Albans Abbey. In 1163 it was given to the bishop of Lincoln. The ghost of Henry Burghersh, 14th-century Bishop of Lincoln, is reputed to haunt the area. [8] After this time it was used as the country residence for the Lincoln diocese until 1547 when it was seized by the Crown. It was then given two years later to the Duke of Somerset who exchanged it with a property belonging to Wells Cathedral. [7] The manor is now privately owned.

The civil parish of Fingest, originally based on the ecclesiastical parish, was enlarged in 1934 by adding land from the parishes of West Wycombe, Great Marlow and Hambleden. As a result, Lane End became the largest settlement in the parish, and the parish was renamed Fingest and Lane End in 1937. [9] In the 1980s the civil parish was abolished. The larger part became the parish of Lane End, and the village of Fingest was added to Hambleden parish.

Scenes of the period drama The Monuments Men were shot in Fingest in May 2013.[ citation needed ]

Notes

  1. Fingest - ” The wood or wooded hill where the assembly meet ” [4]
    • Old Norse Þing : ” assembly ”
    • Old English hyrst : ” wood or wooded hill ”
  2. Old Norse Þing : ” assembly place ” [4] [5]
  3. Old Norse Þing is pronounced ” thing ” , see Thing, British Isles
  4. People of Celtic origin found the ' Þ ' of the Old Norse language ( pronounced ” Th ” ) difficult, hence words that began ' Th ' were often shortened to begin with just ' T ' , ' H ' or ' F ' ( E.g. Number three - ” tree ” )
  5. Examples of place names derived from Old Norse Þing - ( ” thing ” ) :
  6. Old English hyrst : ” hillock, eminence, height, wood, wooded eminence ” [6]

Citations

  1. "MAGiC MaP : Fingest village, Buckinghamshire". Natural England - Magic in the Cloud.
  2. Historic England. "Church of St Bartholomew (1125708)". National Heritage List for England . Retrieved 17 May 2020.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Page 1925, pp. 42–45.
  4. 1 2 3 Reaney 1969, p. 165.
  5. Arthur 2002, p. 8.
  6. Clark Hall 1916, p. 373.
  7. 1 2 William Page, ed. (1925). "Parishes: Fingest". A History of the County of Buckingham: Volume 3. Institute of Historical Research. Retrieved 11 July 2011.
  8. "Green Man of Fingest - Mysterious Britain & Ireland". Mysterious Britain & Ireland. Archived from the original on 12 December 2010. Retrieved 29 August 2014.
  9. Vision of Britain website Archived 28 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine

Sources

Online

Books

Commons-logo.svg Media related to Fingest at Wikimedia Commons

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