Where we live

What’s in the area?

1. Ancient Woodland

   An area that has been wooded continuously from 1600 AD. A wood may have been cut, felled or coppiced since that date but as long as it has regrown it remains ancient. Does not, therefore, have to contain very old trees. We have it in M&M!

2. Apples

   Sheep’s Nose, Long Runnit, Cox’s Orange Pippin, Feltham Beauty, Arthur Turner and Small’s Admirable are some of the varieties of local and historical significance.

3. Ash

   A key component of our mixed deciduous woodland. Strong and flexible, Ash was used to make ploughs, cart axles, tool handles and furniture. It also makes great firewood. Now seriously threatened by Chalara Ash dieback.

4. Beech

   The woods that surround us. Beech woodland is more common on chalk and limestone soils and is characteristically shady with a dense carpet of leaves and mast husks.

5. Bodgers

   Skilled Pole-lathe wood-turners who worked in the Beech woods of the Chiltern Hills producing rungs, stretchers and legs for the local chair industry.

6. Bronze Age

   In the 19th century a Bronze Age cremation site containing urns and incense cups was found at Barrow Croft in Wycombe Marsh and in the 1930s a burial from the period was discovered close by Gomm’s Wood.

7. Butterflies

   Beautiful but in decline. We need to look after their habitats or more will be lost. The caterpillars of the Chalkhill Blue and the rare Adonis Blue feed solely on Horseshoe vetch which is found only on chalk grassland. It all links up…

8. Chairs

   The world-famous furniture trade relied on the local woods. The industry became renowned due to the craft of 19th century chair makers, the Windsor chair being the most famous of the many regional styles.

9. Chalk Grassland

   Rare, important and one of the most endangered habitats in the whole of Britain. We have it in M&M! It has a rich flora (up to 40 species in one square metre) and a diverse invertebrate fauna including many butterflies such as the Chalkhill Blue.

10. Chalk Streams

    Characteristic features of the Chilterns, they are globally rare (with fewer than 200 in the world) and we have the River Wye and the Backstream / Marsh Brook in our area. They are precious and need looking after.

11. Cherries

    A speciality of the region, known locally as Chuggies. Among the well-known varieties in the area were Prestwood Black, Nimble Dick, Kingshill Black, Ronald’s Heart, Goblin and Black Eagle.

12. Coppicing

    Seen frequently in the local woods. A cyclical, ancient form of woodland management involving repetitive felling on the same stump near to ground level and allowing the shoots to regrow for use in crafts or for charcoal burning.

13. Hazel

    Often coppiced and used traditionally to make furniture, fencing and charcoal. A ‘standard’ Hazel may live for 80 or so years, coppiced they can live for hundreds.

14. Kites

    Driven to extinction in England by the end of the 19th century due to human persecution . We see so many of these, now iconic, birds as a result of a successful re-introduction programme carried out between 1989 and 1994.

15. Language

    In 1897 Alfred Heneage Cocks, worried that Bucks words and phrases were being lost, published a list of local words and their meanings. Does anyone remember or still use them?

16. Marsh

    From the Old English ‘merisc’ - the low, wet land.

17. Micklefield

    ‘Micelfield’ the Great Field; the ‘Micklefields’ of the 1760 Jeffrey’s Map.

18. Mills

    Wycombe Marsh was home to several mills - Marsh Green Mill, Bowden Mill, Marsh Mill and Beech Mill were all recorded on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1874. Marsh Mill may have been one of the 6 mill sites in Wycombe recorded in Domesday.

19. Orchids

    Enchanting and extraordinary. Mid-May through to early July is a great time to head out into the grasslands and woods to find these beautiful plants. The grasslands around the edges of Gomm’s Wood are fantastic places to see these beautiful plants.

20. Orchards

    Sadly much of this heritage is now lost. The local orchards of cherry, plum and apple were reduced by over 90% between 1938 and 1994.

21. Plums

    The Aylesbury Prune, a traditional English damson plum, was grown throughout the county for centuries and is now hard to find but the trees, with their rough bark and twisted trunk can be occasionally seen in hedgerows.

22. Railways

    The Wycombe to Maidenhead line opened in 1854, closing in 1970. The embankment carrying the line over Bowden Lane bounds one side of Funges Meadow. In 1906 the Great Western and Great Central Joint Line opened through High Wycombe and on to London.

23. Romano-British

    A possible farmstead has been identified at Melbourne Road. The site is believed to pre-date the villa on the Rye by some thirty years and is perhaps the earliest known Romanised settlement in High Wycombe.

24. Watercress

    Nasturtium officinale. Officinale denotes use in medicine and herbalism, Nasturtium is ‘nose-twister’. A thriving watercress industry once existed all along the river with many cress beds being worked in Wycombe Marsh.