Kingswood, Buckinghamshire
Kingswood is a hamlet of 30 dwellings on the South side of the A41 from Waddesdon to Bicester and between the villages of Ludgershall and Grendon Underwood in Buckinghamshire, England. Kingswood is also a civil parish within Aylesbury Vale district. Parish matters are currently administered via a parish meeting. There is one Italian restaurant and public house, Canaletto which opened in 2013. There is also a derelict Village Hall blown down in the Great Storm of 1987. EtymologyThe hamlet name refers to the nearby Bernwood Forest, an ancient Royal hunting forest. DescriptionThe houses within the hamlet form part of a larger community encompassing a further 30 dwellings within adjoining parishes and includes a burial ground, another public house, The Cook and Billet, and a Mission Hall at the crossroads built around 1850 and left in trust in 1905 by Henry Grattan Guinness (1835–1910) for the salvation or edification of souls. There is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, Ham Home-cum-Hamgreen Woods.[2][3] HistoryThe old Roman Akeman Street was the main route to Cirencester, Cheltenham and Bath and the Crooked Billet an important coaching inn / staging post. The original trustees of the Mission Hall were William Kirby, Sydney Hopcroft, James & John Taylor and William Wellings; and adjoining land then owned by Amy Wellings on one side and William Daniels on the other. RailwayIn the late 19th century the Brill Tramway had a spur to Kingswood. The Metropolitan extended its route north from Baker Street through Harrow and Rickmansworth to Aylesbury and bought out the Aylesbury & Buckingham Railway from Aylesbury via Quainton Road to Verney Junction - and took over the operation of the Wotton Tramway from Quainton Road to Brill. At the same time Manchester, Sheffield, & Lincolnshire Railway extended its main line south to meet the Metropolitan at Quainton Road and then ran along the latter to Finchley Road, where it diverged west to a separate terminus at Marylebone. Therefore, it seems that in the latter half of the 1800s Kingswood was not only on the main coaching route to Cirencester, Cheltenham and Bath but also right in the middle of great infrastructure developments linking it to major hubs North and South. This could explain why such an eminent person as Henry Grattan Guinness decided to site his only known UK chapel in Kingswood. TetchwickWithin Kingswood parish is the hamlet of Tetchwick, located to the south west of the main village on a spar road off the main A41. References
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