Penn village around Holy Trinity Church

1. Holy Trinity Church, Penn

Oldest building in the Conservation Area

Set in an acre of churchyard, Holy Trinity has a late 12th century nave, built in flint with clunch and tiles incorporated. The font, consecration crosses and stone tomb are also 12th century. The south aisle and low tower are early 14th century and the clerestory and the queen-post roof are c.1400. Visitors to the Church should note the rare “Penn Doom” – one of only five surviving wooden tympanums in the country. It is a 12 foot wide painting of the” Last Judgement” on oak panels and hangs above the chancel arch. It was added in the 15th century when Penn Church was owned by Chalcombe Priory in Northamptonshire. In the Lady Chapel there is a reminder of the importance of the local medieval tiling industry where an arrangement of 14th century Penn floor tiles may be seen, as well as a collection of Tudor and Stuart brasses of the Penn family. Wall monuments mainly dedicated to the 18th and early 19th century Curzons and Howes are also on display.

Penn tiles medieval doom

Six grandchildren of William Penn, the Quaker and founder of Pennsylvania are buried in a family vault under the centre of the nave. Heraldic shields on the roof corbels show eight centuries of English history.

The Church has had its share of colourful vicars. During the 14th century the vicar was murdered with an axe. In 1539, at the time of the Reformation, the vicar of Penn was jailed at Aylesbury by his churchwardens for “uttering certain opprobrious words”.

So well positioned is this ancient church, that from the top of the church tower and on a clear day, it was claimed that 12 counties could be seen.

2. Holy Trinity Churchyard

Gravestones of interest

In the churchyard, the earliest marked grave is of William Penn, lord of the manor, who died in 1693. He was no relation to William Penn the Quaker, although both thought they were from the same family. There is an extension of the graveyard to the south, designed by Sir Edward Maufe on the site of a former garden, enclosed by a wall built by the vicar in 1734. Other graves to look out for are those of Donald Maclean, the Russian spy who defected in 1951 and David Blakeley who was shot in 1955 by Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in England.

The children’s author Alison Uttley, of “Little Grey Rabbit” fame, is also buried here. As a local born and bred, she also wrote the County Book of Buckinghamshire, published in 1950 and giving a fascinating insight into life in the rural Bucks of the time.

Dr Louisa Garrett Anderson (daughter of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson) is also buried in the churchyard. She and her friend, Dr Flora Murray, set up a French military auxiliary hospital in the Champs Elysees. It was the first-ever hospital for male patients, staffed and run by women. Louisa and Flora lived at Paul End (now Gatemore Grange).

3. The Parish Room, Pauls Hill

The Parish Room was converted from a 16th century timber-framed house at right angles to the road in around 1730. It was called the Parish Pay Room and was used by the Vestry for poor relief administration and was where taxes were set, collected and disbursed. The poor rate was paid out monthly to the poor, who could represent up to a quarter of the parish after a bad harvest. Cottages for the parish poor were also built by 1744, some of them in Beacon Hill.

The Parish Room was also used as a lace school and a Sunday School. At one time there was a shop and a pub at the back. In 1894, the first election for a Parish Council took place there and subsequent meetings took place by gaslight until 2002 when the building was converted into an office. In 1995, parish records dating as far back as 1804 were found in an old locked safe.

4. The Knoll

Fine example of a small country house

This house is at the rear of the churchyard and was built in 1671 for the newly-wed Nathaniel Curzon and his wife Sarah Penn. External brick walls support the roof, but the interior is supported by a heavy oak frame. It has original casement windows on the north side. On the south side is a tiled turret where, so local legend has it, Queen Anne sat watching her children play on the lawn at Windsor. However, this is wildly improbable and a more likely explanation for the turret is that it was built as an observatory by the Rev. Benjamin Anderson (1733-1823) who lived in the house before becoming Vicar of Penn in 1808. He was a friend of Edmund Burke (see separate profile), who described him in letters to the Home Secretary and Secretary at War in 1795 as “a Clergyman at Penn…of Learning and Merit….whose Observatory and Experimental apparatus I wished much to show you…”

Mrs Frances Knollis, wife of the vicar from 1823-60 lived in the house for 20 years after her husband died. Sir George Robertson lived there from 1927-1939. He was a classical scholar who threw the discus for England in the first revived Olympic Games. The Countess Howe, divorced wife of the 5th Earl, moved to the house in 1945, followed by her son. After nearly three centuries of Curzon ownership, the house was sold in 1956.

A later owner was Ernest Saunders, the convicted Chairman of Guinness.

5. The War Memorial Green

Opposite The Crown

The village stocks were once on this green beneath two very old elm trees. A whitebeam was planted in 1997 to replace the last stock elm (before Dutch Elm disease, elms were an intrinsic part of the landscape). The houses surrounding the green and extending down Pauls Hill are the oldest in the conservation area.

The War Memorial stands as tribute to those who died in the First World War. It was erected in 1922 and dedicated by Field Marshal Sir William Robertson. The names of those killed in the Second World War were added after 1945.

The red telephone box was listed in 1989. It was designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott in 1935.

Although the houses surrounding the Green are not open to the public, the exteriors give ample clue to their history. Of interest may be the 16th – 18th century listed cottages by the roadside on Pauls Hill. Stone Cottage and Nos 1-3 Church Cottages are of flint with brick dressings which conceal earlier timber-framing. There are many old chimneys on top of the old tile roof which include an example of triple- shafted brick. Nos. 5 and 6 Church Cottages are 17th century.

6. The Crown

Public house and former inn

The Crown is thought to be one of two alehouses recorded in Penn in 1577. The other one is thought to have been on the site of the Red Lion, near Widmer pond. Today it is one of four public houses still open in the Conservation Area. The oldest part of the building is 16th century with late 18th and 20th century additions. The original part of the pub is built of red and grey brick with a tiled roof over.

The Crown is situated at the edge of the village where Witheridge Lane (formerly Witherage) comes up from Beaconsfield. It was once an inn with five bedrooms where Penn House estate workers met for suppers and large shooting parties were hosted. During the Second World War it was the local for the Home Guard. The pub was owned by the Penn Estate with the Daurvill family as landlords for over a century from 1750. The Garlands were then landlords from 1864 until 1929, when the inn was sold.

7. The Old Vicarage

Visited by royalty

The house is an early 19th century Georgian villa. It was built in 1825 at the expense of the Rev. James Knollis, vicar of Penn. Legend has it that there is an underground passage from the cellar of the house to the church, which was blocked up in the 1960’s. King William and Queen Adelaide paid two visits to the house, which are recorded in letters of 1833 and 1835.

General Sir Brian Robertson lived there after the Second World War. He was Military Governor and Commander in Chief for the British Occupation Zone in Germany from 1947-1949 and was succeeded by General Montgomery, who was a visitor to the house in 1945. General Robertson’s father, Field Marshal Sir William Robertson, dedicated the Penn War Memorial in 1922.

In 1925 the Vicarage was sold to Mrs Ralph Heal who lived there until moving in 1932 to Tithe Cottage, now known as Penn Court and situated opposite the Old Vicarage.

th th Smart dwellings of the 17 – 19 centuries

1. The houses along Church Road, Penn

The ridge top of Church Road in Penn was used by both Winston Churchill and Clement Attlee when driving between London and Chequers. Many of the houses are Listed. Stonehouse is an early 19th-century refacing of a jettied medieval timber-framed house. It was inhabited by generations of the Grove family from the Middle Ages until 1952. Edmund Grove (1729-1823) is said to have been a favourite of George III, who supposedly watched him through his telescope from the Round Tower at Windsor, walking on his lawn at Stonehouse. From 1953-1980, fashion journalist Veronica Papworth lived there. A recent owner, Alexander Shephard, was High Sheriff of the county in 2001-2.

17th century Pewsey Cottage was probably once a lodge to Puttenham Place to which a track opposite still runs. The building has Dutch gables like those of another lodge at Old Bank House next to the Red Lion in Elm Road. Formerly known as Pusey Cottage, it was a tea-room/guest house from 1913- 37. Troutwells, also late 17th century, is today sub divided. Sir Courtenay Peregrine Ilbert lived in the house, from 1912 through to the 1920’s. He had been the senior legal advisor to the Governor General of India and was later Clerk to the House of Commons (1902-21).

Further along the ridge is Alde House. It is based on a Victorian cottage, once thatched, and was opened in 1972 as a residential home for the elderly of the village by a local group led by Geoffrey Perfect, a member of a long- established local family. Next to Alde House is Manor House, once home to the steward of Segraves Manor and meeting place of the Manor Court. It has also been an antiques shop and a tea garden. On the north side of the road is Penn Cottage, probably built in 1735. Novelist Elizabeth Taylor, who lived here for most of her married life from the 1940’s, is regarded by Antonia Fraser as “one of the most underrated novelists of the 20th-century”.

Opposite the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel is Watercroft, built in about 1815. Sir George Grove, original author of the Dictionary of Music, was an earlier owner and it is said that Arthur Sullivan, of Gilbert and Sullivan, a close friend, wrote ”The Lost Chord”, “Onward Christian Soldiers” and “Tit Willow” from the former summerhouse. Mary Berry,the well-known food writer, lives there now.

The Wesleyan Chapel, on the north side of the road is not listed but dates from 1808 and was the first Free Methodist Chapel in the Wycombe area. It was named “Providence Chapel” on the 1875 map when a new chapel of yellow brick was added to the west and the original simple red-brick chapel at right angles to the road was converted to a schoolroom. The 1851 religious census shows that Penn was a strong Methodist parish with 580 villagers attending three services or Sunday school on the census day (471 attended Holy Trinity Church). Beyond the chapel and on the south side is The Chinnery (formerly Dell Cottage). Once a pair of workmen’s cottages it was converted by Lord Dawson of Penn, who was George V’s physician. He was one of the first London based commuters and recipient of the first ever transatlantic call in 1927, linking Pennsylvania to Penn Post Office. Because of his title, he was mistaken as a descendant of William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania! Lord Dawson is particularly remembered for the words of his 1935 bulletin, “the King’s life is moving peacefully towards its close.”

2. Beacon Hill

Up Beacon Hill Lane

Dating back to Saxon times, there was a lookout point and beacon on Beacon Hill. The beacon, which gave Beaconsfield its name, was part of a chain from the naval base at Portsmouth via Butser Hill, Hindshead, Hogsback and Windsor and on via Penn to West Wycombe, Stokenchurch and the Aylesbury vale. The Normans called the common and Beacon Hill, “Garrett Green” (meaning look-out point). Garrett Green was later called Gerrards Green and by the 14th century Tiler End Green. The beacon would have blazed to warn of the Spanish Armada in 1588. It would have been prepared for the last time to warn of the invasion by Napoleon.

Significant local people

1. The Penn – Curzon – Howe family

Prominent local landowners linked with Penn since the Norman Conquest

The same family has been the principal landowner in Penn and Lords of the Manor since the Norman Conquest. By the 12th century, the de la Pennes (who took their name from the place) were Lords of the Manor and their overlords were the de Turvilles, who held a small castle at Weston Turville. Penn’s population was some 200. There were two manor houses – one belonging to the de la Pennes at Penbury, between Penn and Knotty Green, and another at Withiheg (hence Witheridge Lane), now Puttenham Farm. In 1222, Nicholas de la Penne was hanged for murdering a neighbouring landowner from Beaconsfield and part of his estate was given to Baron Stephen de Segrave.

A Statute of 1285 first allowed a lord to enclose part of a shared common, provided enough pasture was left for the “commoners”. Soon afterwards the de la Penne’s left Penbury and moved to the present site of Penn House, which is on former common heathland. In the 16th century Henry VIII appointed Sybil Penne as foster mother to the future Edward VI. Her reward included land and property, including Holy Trinity Church. Roger Penn (the last Penn) died in 1731. The property was inherited by his sister Sarah who married Sir Nathaniel Curzon. In the 18th century one of the Curzons married the daughter of Admiral Earl Howe, who died without male heirs. The grandson of that Admiral was re-created Earl Howe. At the turn of the 20th century the family owned some 4,000 acres in Penn and the neighbouring parishes. Over the course of the 20th century half of it was sold off. The estate is now held by the 7th Earl Howe.

Holy Trinity Church houses many monuments to the family (see profile of Church)

2. General Haviland and Edmund Burke

Historic figures of the 18th century

General Haviland lived for the last few years of his life in Tylers Green House, a large mansion close to Widmer Pond and overlooking the common. He was involved in defeating Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1745 and commanded a brigade in Canada, where he served under General Wolfe at the capture of Quebec from the French in 1759. There is a memorial to him in Holy Trinity Church, with an epitaph by his friend, parliamentarian, Edmund Burke – “an experienced and successful Commander without ostentation: a firm friend without profession: a good man without pretence.”

Edmund Burke later founded the French School in Tylers Green House in 1796. He was a local landowner with an estate mainly in Beaconsfield but with a small part of it in Penn. The school was for boys of the émigré French nobility and attracted many distinguished visitors, including the future King of France, the Prime Minister of England, the Lord Chancellor and many government ministers. The school closed in 1820 and Tylers Green House was demolished two years later.

Edmund Burke

3. Sir Philip Rose

Developed the Rayners Estate in the 19th century

Philip Rose was born into a leading Wycombe family in 1816. When only 25, as a junior partner in a firm of London solicitors, he was dismayed to discover that no hospital would treat one of his clerks for “consumption”. Undeterred, he used his formidable drive and energy to establish the now world-famous Brompton Hospital with Queen Victoria as patron and Prince Albert laying the foundation stone. Charles Dickens spoke in his support.

He earned his fortune as a solicitor during a time of rapid expansion of the railway system. Benjamin Disraeli was a close friend and he managed his legal and financial affairs, as well as acting as national agent for the Conservative Party. He and Disraeli bought their local estates at the same time, Disraeli at Hughenden and Philip Rose at Rayners. On becoming Prime Minister in 1874, Disraeli offered Philip Rose a baronetcy and he later became High Sheriff of the County.

Two farms, Rayners and Colehatch in Hammersley Lane, formed the basis of the Rayners estate. He took on the role of Squire of Tylers Green and Rayners became the focus of all village celebrations, employing two thirds of the adult population as estate workers or tenants. In 1854, largely using lhis own money, he built St Margaret’s Church and established a separate parish of Tylers Green. He also built St Margaret’s Institute to try to keep working men out of the pubs and was a benefactor of Tylers Green School.

Sir Philip died in 1883 and was buried in the family vault under St Margaret’s Church. His legacy was continued by his son, the second Sir Philip, who hosted a grand firework display in “Celebration of Victory and Peace” at Rayners in July 1919. He died soon afterwards and the title and estate were inherited by his young grandson, whose trustees decided to sell off the estate. In 1920, the house and grounds were bought by the London County Council for use as a school for deaf children, which is now known as Penn School.

Obelisk marking Queen Victoria’s visit to Rayners