Hedgerley

Not a lot of prehistoric material has been found in Hedgerley, but a few Neolithic flint flakes were found somewhere in the parish, and one can be more accurately provenanced to Hedgerley Park. Three or more ring-ditches, possible the ditches around ploughed out barrows, were seen on aerial photographs in a field to the east of the M40. Roman pottery has also been found in Hedgerley Park and a Roman pottery kiln is known at Slade Farm. A Roman road is thought to pass through this parish, too.

Hedgerley Dean is where a battle between Saxons and Vikings is supposed to have taken place and nineteenth century records suggest surviving entrenchments, but these cannot be found today. There are several manors known in Hedgerley. Bulstrode manor is known from Domesday but several others appeared in the thirteenth century, such as Temple Bulstrode manor, that was owned by the Knights Templar. An early fourteenth century house and moat was found in excavation at Moat Farm, which is thought to be a Knight’s Templar manor house. Penland Manor also seems to have appeared in the thirteenth century. Other medieval sites are not prominent. A small amount of ridge-and-furrow and the cropmarks of several ditches, possibly field boundaries, have been found around Hedgerley.

St Mary’s church has gone through a great deal of change over the last couple of centuries. There are records of a church in existence as far back as 1264 but this building is long gone. It was rebuilt for the first time in 1770 and then rebuilt again on a nearby spot in the churchyard in 1825. The earliest listed building in the parish is therefore either Leith Grove or the Old Quaker House, both with sixteenth century origins. Several other listed buildings date to the seventeenth century, such as Metcalfe Farm and one of its barns, or Pennlands Farm. Other buildings date to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, such as Old School Cottage. Hedgerley Park or Grove was also a nineteenth century house but it was demolished in the 1930s.