Upper Winchendon was described in 1806 in "Magna Britannia" as follows:
OVER, or UPPER-WINCHENDON, in the hundred of Ashendon and deanery of Waddesdon, lies about six miles west of Aylesbury. The manor was given by King Henry I. to the canons of St. Frideswide in Oxford. After the suppression of that convent it was given to Cardinal Wolsey. On the cardinal's fall the grant was resumed, and it continued in the crown till 1623, when it was granted to the family of Goodwin, and passed in marriage with Jane, daughter and heir of Arthur Goodwin esq. to Philip Lord Wharton: his son Thomas, who was in 1706 created Viscount Winchendon, Earl, and afterwards Marquis of Wharton, made Winchendon his chief residence, having enlarged the manor-house, and made it a magnificent mansion. The gardens were esteemed superior to any then in the county, and were particularly celebrated for a fine collection of orange trees. Philip Lord Wharton, who suceeded his father in his title and estates, was, in 1718, created Duke of Wharton. Granger relates an anecdote of the facetious Colley Cibber, that riding the duke in his coach at Winchendon, where the soil is a stiff clay, and the roads very deep and heavy, thus addressed himself to his noble companion: report says that your grace is running out of your estates, I am sure that 'tis impossible for you to run out of this. The Duke of Wharton having been attainted of treason for acting in favour of the pretender, and his estates confiscated, the manor of Over-Winchendon, was sold to Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, and the house and gardens, after a very short-lived fame, became dilapidated and neglected. The house was pulled down about the year 1760. Some of the offices have been fitted up for residence of a steward. The estate is now the property of his grace the Duke of Marlborough, who has the impropriation of the great tithes formerly belonging to the canons of St. Frideswide, and is patron the vicarage.
In the church is the tomb of Sir John Stodel, a vicar of Winchendon, with his effigies on a brass plate, remarkably well preserved.
