Chesham Bois

The following reference sources have been used in the construction of this page, and may be referred to for further detail. Most if not all of these volumes are available in the Reference section of the County Library in Aylesbury.

"Buckinghamshire", E.S. Roscoe, London Methuen & Co Ltd, 1935.
"Buckinghamshire Returns of the Census of Religious Worship 1851", Legg E. ed., 1991, ISBN 0 901198 27 7.
"Magna Britannia: Buckinghamshire", Lysons S. and Lysons D., 1806.
"The Place-Names of Buckinghamshire", Mawer A. and Stenton F.M., 1925.
"The Victoria History of the Counties of England: Buckinghamshire", Page W. ed., 1905-1928
"War Memorials and War Graves: Amersham, Chesham and area, Volume 10", Peter Quick.

The following Monumental Inscriptions are available as publications or as part of a Society library:

• Monumental Inscriptions for St Leonard's church are in the library* of the Buckinghamshire Genealogical Society.
• War memorials in Chesham Bois have been transcribed by Peter Quick and published by the Buckinghamshire Genealogical Society.

* = material held in a Society library is generally available for loan to all members either via post, or by collection at a meeting

In 1798 the Posse Comitatus listed 33 men between the ages of 16 and 60 in Chesham Bois.

In the earliest government census of 1801, there were 135 inhabitants in 29 families living in 23 houses recorded in Chesham Bois.

* = No names were recorded in census documents from 1801 to 1831.
** = Census documents from 1911 to 2001 are only available in summary form. Names are witheld under the 100 year rule.

Microfilm copies of all census enumerators' notebooks for 1841 to 1891 are held at the Local Studies Libraries at Aylesbury and Milton Keynes, as well as centrally at the PRO. A table of 19th century census headcount by parish is printed in the VCH of Bucks, Vol.2, pp 96-101.

Availability of census transcripts and indexes.

• 1851 - Full transcripts and indexes for Buckinghamshire are available on CD-ROM, hard copy and microfiche from the Buckinghamshire Family History Society.
• 1861 - Available on CD-ROM with advanced search and mapping capabilities etc. from the Buckinghamshire Genealogical Society.
• 1881
  • Available on CD-ROM from the Church of the Latter Day Saints, as part of the National 1881 Census Index.
  • Available on CD-ROM for Buckinghamshire, with advanced search and mapping capabilities etc. from Drake Software.
• 1891 - Available on CD-ROM with advanced search and mapping capabilities etc. from the Buckinghamshire Genealogical Society.

• Ministers of the Parish Church of St Leonard

Details of the stained glass in the church can be found on the following web sites (the site includes many photos):

• Buckinghamshire Stained Glass

The original copies of the parish registers for St Leonard, Chesham Bois have been deposited in the Buckinghamshire Record Office in Aylesbury, and they hold the following years:

Copies or indexes to the parish registers are available from societies as follows:

* = material held in a Society library is generally available for loan to all members either via post, or by collection at a meeting

An ecclesiastical census was carried out throughout England on 30 March 1851 to record the attendance at all places of worship. These returns are in the Buckinghamshire Record Office and have been published by the Buckinghamshire Record Society (vol 27). The returns for Chesham Bois showed the following numbers:

• Buckinghamshire Church Photos by Kevin Quick.
• Buckinghamshire Records and Local Studies Service - large collection of old photos of Buckinghamshire

• Geograph
• Flickr

• Ask for a calculation of the distance from Chesham Bois to another place.

• One-Place Study - Colin Mills is conducting a One-Place Study on Chesham Bois, and has collected a large amount of information from sources such as directories, censuses, electoral registers, pollbooks, parish registers, and specialist indexes etc. He will conduct name searches for a fee (or free to those who provide documented details of residents or strays). Please contact him for further details, at: Colin Mills, 70 Chestnut Lane, Amersham, Bucks HP6 6EH, tel 01494 726103, fax 01494 729358, email colinmills[at]phonecoop[dot]coop. for further details

Chesham Bois was described in 1806 in "Magna Britannia" as follows:

CHESHAM-BOIS, in the hundred and deanery of Burnham, lies nearly two miles south of the town of Chesham. The family of De Bosco or De Bois were possessed of the manor in the reign of King John. About the reign of Henry VII. it came into the Cheyne family, by the marriage of Sir Thomas Cheyne, of Cheynies and Drayton-Beauchamp, with Elizabeth, daughter and heir of Sir John Chesham, who seems to have inherited in the female line from the family of De Bois. From this time it continued to be one of their principal seats, until the death of William Cheyne, Lord Viscount Newhaven, without male issue in 1728: soon after this, it became the property of John Earl Gower, and was sold by him, in 1735, to the Duke of Bedford, from whom it has descended to his grandson, the present duke. In the parish church are some memorials for the family of Cheyne, and other persons allied with it, among which is an altar-tomb (without inscription), which has the insignia of the Garter. The church was formerly a chapel of ease to Chesham, but has since become parochial: the Duke of Bedford has the great tithes, and is patron of the donative.

You can see maps centred on OS grid reference SU969998 (Lat/Lon: 51.688604, -0.599617), Chesham Bois which are provided by:

• OpenStreetMap
• Google Maps
• StreetMap (Current Ordnance Survey maps)
• Bing (was Multimap)
• Old Maps Online
• National Library of Scotland (Old Ordnance Survey maps)
• Vision of Britain (Click "Historical units & statistics" for administrative areas.)
• English Jurisdictions in 1851 (Unfortunately the LDS have removed the facility to enable us to specify a starting location, you will need to search yourself on their map.)
• Magic (Geographic information) (Click + on map if it doesn't show)
• GeoHack (Links to on-line maps and location specific services.)

• All places within the same township/parish shown on an Openstreetmap map.
• Nearby townships/parishes shown on an Openstreetmap map.
• Nearby places shown on an Openstreetmap map.

Chesham Bois derives its name from two sources. The first part, Chesham, derives from the old english ceasteles-hamm and means 'the hamm of the ceastel'. The second part Bois relates to the family of De Bosco or De Bois which held the manor (mentioned in records in 1213).