Ashley Green

Last updated

Ashley Green
Ashley Green Church.JPG
St John the Evangelist Parish Church
Buckinghamshire UK location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Ashley Green
Location within Buckinghamshire
Population980 (2011, including Orchard Leigh) [1]
OS grid reference SP9705
Civil parish
  • Ashley Green
Unitary authority
Ceremonial county
Region
Country England
Sovereign state United Kingdom
Post town CHESHAM
Postcode district HP5
Dialling code 01442
Police Thames Valley
Fire Buckinghamshire
Ambulance South Central
UK Parliament
List of places
UK
England
Buckinghamshire
51°44′N0°35′W / 51.73°N 00.59°W / 51.73; -00.59

Ashley Green is a village and civil parish in Buckinghamshire, England. The parish is on the boundary with Hertfordshire, midway between Chesham and Berkhamsted.

Contents

Originally a hamlet within Chesham parish, its toponym is derived from the Old English for Ash Field, referring to the forest that once covered this part of the Chiltern Hills.

Churches

Ashley Green used to have a Baptist church, situated down Hog Lane, which was a branch of Broadway Baptist Church in Chesham. It closed in the early 1900s.

Anglican services started in the village school in 1872, led by Rev Pratt, vicar of St Mary's Chesham. Land for an Anglican church was given by Lord Chesham. The architect was G.E. Street and the contractor G. Cooper of Aylesbury Buckinghamshire. The total cost of the building was over £2,000 with the endowment being a further £6,000. The Church was built and endowed by the gift of Elizabeth Dorrien of Clifton, Bristol, in memory of her sisters and dedicated to John the Evangelist on 31 December 1873, although it was already in use when it was dedicated. Ashley Green became a separate ecclesiastical parish in 1876. Newspapers and coins were built into the pillar adjoining the pulpit. In 1980 the parish rejoined Chesham parish under a team ministry. [2]

The Church is built of local knapped black flints with Bath stone dressings. There is a bellcote with two bells. There is a boiler house, and the church was originally being heated by "Hayden's hot air apparatus", now disused. The porch is on the Northern side of the building the front of which is an oak moulded archway, the timber being framed in red bricks - herringboned. The roof is of plain clay tiles. St. John's has stained glass windows from various makers including Burlison and Grylls, Kempe and Co., James Powell and Sons, C.E. Moore and A.L. Moore. [3]

Some of St. Johns' pews used to have a note on them that stated:

The seats in this Church are entirely free and unappropriated. The Church Wardens look to the Congregation for the support through the offertory of the usual Church expenses.

The bellcote has two bells, one of a diameter of one foot seven and a half inches (49.5 cm) and the other of a diameter of one foot five inches (43 cm). John Taylor & Co of Loughborough cast them in 1874 and refurbished and re-hung in the early 1990s.

In 2010 a kitchen and toilet was installed in the Church. In keeping with the tradition of the original builders, a time capsule that included a newspaper and a photograph of the congregation was buried under the floor of the kitchen.

Population

Today Ashley Green is a popular home for commuters and executives who commute daily to London. There are also many local residents who have lived and raised children who also continue to live in the village along with several farms surrounding the area.

Local business

Hog Lane farm Hog Lane Farm - geograph.org.uk - 137544.jpg
Hog Lane farm

Ashley Green has one public house, "The Golden Eagle", referred to locally as "The Eagle". On the junction of Chesham Road and Hog Lane the corner house used to be a shop and post office. An old post box still remains built into one of the entrance posts. There is a "farm shop" at John's Lane farm and the Chesham side of the village has a farm selling free range eggs.

Community facilities

The old school is used by a playgroup youth club and for ballet classes. The village hall also hosts regular events such as the village fete and for rehearsals by local actors who put on productions around the local area. Behind the village hall in The Glebe there is a play park. There is a well on the village green outside the entrance gates to the old school.

Media

Ashley Village School was the subject of a documentary film (Village School 1940) directed by John Eldridge. The film is a tribute to Britain's women teachers in wartime.

The film 'starred' Mrs. James the headmistress of the school and Mrs. Glover the other teacher at the school. Many of the pupils are shown taking part in school activities both indoors and outdoors. Some of the pupils were evacuees.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chesham</span> Human settlement in England

Chesham is a market town and civil parish in Buckinghamshire, England, United Kingdom 11 miles (18 km) south-east of the county town of Aylesbury, 25.8 miles (41.5 km) north-west of central London, and part of the London commuter belt. It is in the Chess Valley, surrounded by farmland. The earliest records of Chesham as a settlement are from the second half of the 10th century, although there is archaeological evidence of people in this area from around 8000 BC. Henry III granted a royal charter for a weekly market in 1257.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quainton</span> Human settlement in England

Quainton is a village and civil parish in Buckinghamshire, England, 7 miles (11 km) north-west of Aylesbury. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 Census was 1,295. The village has two churches, a school and one public house. The location means that while many commute to London, others are employed in neighbouring towns and villages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bellingdon</span> Human settlement in England

Bellingdon is a village in the civil parish of Chartridge, in Buckinghamshire, England. The name derives from the Anglo Saxon Bellingdenu or Bella's Valley, and is recorded as Belenden in the 15th century. It is arranged along a ridge, typical of the Chiltern Hills to the north of Chesham.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chartridge</span> Human settlement in England

Chartridge is a village in Buckinghamshire, England situated 2 miles North West of Chesham.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Drayton Parslow</span> Human settlement in England

Drayton Parslow is a village and civil parish in Buckinghamshire, England, about 3.5 miles (5.6 km) south of Bletchley, within the Buckinghamshire Council unitary authority area. In the 2001 census the parish had a population of 596, increasing at the 2011 census to 614.

Frieth is a village in the parish of Hambleden, in Buckinghamshire, England. It lies on the top of "Frieth Hill", which is part of the chalk escarpments of the Chiltern Hills.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hawridge</span> Human settlement in England

Hawridge is a small village in the Chilterns in the county of Buckinghamshire, England and bordering the county boundary with Hertfordshire. It is 3 miles (4.8 km) from Chesham, 4 miles (6.4 km) from both Tring and Berkhamsted. Hawridge is one of four villages making up Cholesbury-cum-St Leonards, a civil parish within Chiltern District.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Holmer Green</span> Human settlement in England

Holmer Green is a village in the civil parish of Little Missenden, in Buckinghamshire, England. It is next to Hazlemere, about 3 miles (5 km) south of Great Missenden.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hyde Heath</span> Human settlement in England

Hyde Heath is a village in the civil parish of Little Missenden, in the Buckinghamshire district of the ceremonial county of Buckinghamshire, England. It is located in the Chiltern Hills, around 1 mile (1.6 km) northeast of the village of Little Missenden and 2.5 miles (4 km) northwest of Amersham.

Cholesbury-cum-St Leonards is a civil parish in the Chiltern district of the English county of Buckinghamshire. It lies in the Chiltern Hills just to the north of Chesham, on the boundary with Hertfordshire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Buckland Common</span> Human settlement in England

Buckland Common is a hamlet in Buckinghamshire, England. It is located in the Chiltern Hills, 4 miles (6.4 km) east of Wendover and the same distance south of Tring in Hertfordshire with which it shares a boundary. The northern end of the settlement is delineated by a short section of Grim's Ditch. It is in the civil parish of Cholesbury-cum-St Leonards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ley Hill</span> Human settlement in England

Ley Hill is a Chiltern village on the Buckinghamshire/Hertfordshire border in south-east England, near the town of Chesham. It is part of the civil parish of Latimer and Ley Hill, and comes under Chiltern District Council in the County of Buckinghamshire. Ley Hill lies in the Chiltern Hills and is contiguous with Botley.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Eamer Kempe</span> English designer and manufacturer of stained glass

Charles Eamer Kempe was a British Victorian era designer and manufacturer of stained glass. His studios produced over 4,000 windows and also designs for altars and altar frontals, furniture and furnishings, lychgates and memorials that helped to define a later nineteenth-century Anglican style. The list of English cathedrals containing examples of his work includes: Chester, Gloucester, Hereford, Lichfield, Wells, Winchester and York. Kempe's networks of patrons and influence stretched from the Royal Family and the Church of England hierarchy to the literary and artistic beau monde.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarratt</span> Human settlement in England

Sarratt is both a village and a civil parish in Three Rivers District, Hertfordshire, England. It is situated 4 miles (6.4 km) north of Rickmansworth on high ground near the county boundary with Buckinghamshire. The chalk stream, the River Chess, rising just north of Chesham in the Chiltern Hills, passes through Sarratt Bottom in the valley to the west of the village to join the River Colne in Rickmansworth. The conditions offered by the river are perfect for the cultivation of watercress. Sarratt has the only commercially operating watercress farm in Hertfordshire. The valley to the east of Sarratt is dry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Whelpley Hill</span>

Whelpley Hill is a hamlet in the parish of Ashley Green in Buckinghamshire, England. It is located to the east of Chesham, near the border with Hertfordshire and is the site of an Iron Age hillfort.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pond Park</span>

Pond Park is an area of Chesham in Buckinghamshire, England, built on the hills to the north of the town starting in 1891.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Little Tew</span> Human settlement in England

Little Tew is an English village and civil parish about 4+12 miles (7 km) northeast of Chipping Norton and 8+12 miles (14 km) southwest of Banbury in Oxfordshire. The parish is bounded to the northwest by the River Swere and a road between Little Tew and Hook Norton, to the north by a tributary of the River Cherwell and to the south by an ancient drovers' road called Green Lane. The remaining parts of the parish bounds are field boundaries. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 253.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St John the Evangelist's Church, Crosscanonby</span> Church in Cumbria, England

St John the Evangelist's Church is in the village of Crosscanonby, Cumbria, England. It is an active Anglican parish church in the deanery of Solway, the archdeaconry of West Cumberland and the diocese of Carlisle. The church is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St Mary's Church, Chesham</span> Anglican church in Buckinghamshire, UK

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St John the Baptist's Church, Arkholme</span> Church in Lancashire, England

St John the Baptist's Church, is in the village of Arkholme, Lancaster, Lancashire, England. It is an active Anglican parish church in the deanery of Tunstall, the archdeaconry of Lancaster, and the diocese of Blackburn. Its benefice is united with those of St Margaret, Hornby, St John the Evangelist, Gressingham, and St Michael the Archangel, Whittington-in-Lonsdale. The church is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II* listed building. It stands at the end of the village street, overlooking the River Lune, within the bailey of a former castle. The former 11th-century motte stands to the northeast of the church.

References

  1. UK Census (2011). "Local Area Report – Ashley Green Parish (E04001564)". Nomis. Office for National Statistics . Retrieved 17 November 2021.
  2. "St John's AG(old)". greatchesham.org.uk.
  3. Buckinghamshire Stained Glass: Windows in St John the Evangelist, Ashley Green, Bucks

Commons-logo.svg Media related to Ashley Green at Wikimedia Commons