Wooburn

Human settlement in England

Wooburn

Unitary authority

Buckinghamshire

Buckinghamshire

Region

South East

CountryEnglandSovereign stateUnited KingdomPost townHigh WycombePostcode districtHP10Dialling code01628PoliceThames ValleyFire Buckinghamshire Ambulance South Central UK Parliament

Beaconsfield

List of places: UK; England; Buckinghamshire

51°34′52″N 0°41′28″W / 51.581°N 0.691°W / 51.581; -0.691

Wooburn is a large village in Buckinghamshire, England.^[2] It is located off the A4094 road between Wooburn Green and Bourne End in the very south of the county near the River Thames, about two miles south west of Beaconsfield and four miles east of Marlow. Wooburn is one of the two principal settlements within Wooburn, a civil parish in Wycombe district.^[3]

The village toponym is derived from the Old English for "walled stream". This refers to the River Wye, which has its source near West Wycombe and runs through the village to join the River Thames at Bourne End. The river runs along the boundary of Warren Nature Reserve, a Local Nature Reserve which adjoins Wooburn Park. In the Domesday Book of 1086 the village was recorded as Waborne though earlier, in 1075, it had been referred to as Waburna.^[4]^[5] The Church of England parish church of Saint Paul is medieval but was extensively altered by the Gothic Revival architect William Butterfield in 1869. It has a flint nave and a tall tower. There are some half timbered houses facing the churchyard and nearby there is a flint school house.

The manor house of Wooburn was once a palace of the Bishops of Lincoln.

The former Wooburn Grange Country Club was used as the exterior of the Fawlty Towers hotel in the classic 1970s sitcom. The building was destroyed by a fire in 1991, then demolished and a housing estate was built on the site.

References

^ "Civil Parish population 2011". Neighbourhood Statistics. Office for National Statistics. Retrieved 15 November 2016.
^ Ordnance Survey: Landranger map sheet 175 Reading & Windsor (Henley-on-Thames & Bracknell) (Map). Ordnance Survey. 2012. ISBN 9780319232149.
^ "Ordnance Survey Election Maps". www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk. Ordnance Survey. Retrieved 18 February 2016.
^ Professor J.J.N.Palmer. "Open Doomsday: Wooburn". www.opendomesday.org. Anna Powell-Smith. Retrieved 3 February 2016.
^ Mills, A.D. (2011) [first published 1991]. A Dictionary of British Place Names (First edition revised 2011 ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 507. ISBN 9780199609086.