Tour de Chesham

As you will know from the blog below we have moved to Chesham, more specifically the 'Old Town' which we think is very nice.
Chesham (literally hamlet on the Chess) is an old market town in southern Buckinghamshire about 7 miles west-north-west of Chorleywood. It truly seems further away as the big 4wd's and snooty people don't seem to have made it this far. The town has a Metropolitan line (tube) station but with the exception of a few trains every day, you have to change at the next stop to get into London. I think this has acted as a defensive shield for Chesham, keeping out people who just commute to work and don't make the place any more interesting, and thus it has a bit more of a gritty character to it.
A lot of the town seems like it was built up during the first half of the 20th century and is a bit bland. However the old part of town has many interesting buildings and is well worth a look. Here is a little virtual tour to give you an idea of what we like about it.

Out the front door and past out neighbours on the right are these allotments. Much as we would like one we're not going to get one as the competition between the old blokes who have them seems pretty fierce and they are very well kept. The brick wall on the right is the end of our row of terraces and the road is Germain Street. The road to the left is Wey Lane and leads to the Queens Head (a pub) and Church Street which is where a lot of the interesting old buildings are. Behind the photographer is a school which was attended by one of Chris' bosses when he was younger (Derek, now approx 75 years old). During WWII he had to tend these allotments as part of the 'dig for victory' campaign.




Six doors down the road in the opposite direction and towards the Chess (which is a river by the way) is Weylands House, which according to a plaque on the wall outside used to be the town poor house until 1835, that's 5 years before the Treaty of Waitangi was signed. Opposite it is the Kings Arms, another of our local pubs, and also a big old house that might once have owned a lot of this part of town as it's garden. The aussie bloke who lives there calls the Chess 'the creek' and he's not kidding. It's tiny.




These houses are diagonally opposite us and just to the right of the picture in the allotments photograph. When you walk past at night and the lights are on it's quite amazing to see the old beams inside and how there isn't a right angle anywhere. Chris is quite glad that we didn't end up living in one of these as he would have had to wear a hard hat all the time.




Church Street is on the far side of the poplars (big green trees to the left of the allotments photo) and on it is the oldest building in Chesham. The intricate bit of woodwork visible under the eaves dates from the 14th century - that's the 1300's - pretty old huh? Someone still lives in it of course and they have a very modern plasma screen T.V. which shows that people can adapt their modern lifestyles to ancient dwellings and ensure their continued longevity.




A number of buildings in the old town still have fake windows like the one you can see above the door in the picture below. They are a result of the window tax which was introduced by William III in 1696 and continued until 1851. The tax was initially 2 shillings, or 8 shillings on houses with more than 6 windows; although a sliding scale was introduced in the later 1700's. Fake windows like this were either where an existing window had been covered over to lower the number to below the threshhold, or in some cases were built to purposefully confuse tax inspectors.




These are the Sixpenny Houses on the walk through from Church Street to Lowndes Park, which occupies the site of an old estate and brings grass and trees very near to the center of town. The construction from brick and flint is very distinctive to the Chilterns (the line of hills that defines this area of England) as flint is very common around here. The cottages got their name from the rent that used to be charged on them.




Hopefully there will be pictures posted of our new house soon, once the boxes are cleared and everything has a place.