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Burnham must have been an important village in the English countryside from as far back as when records were first kept, because its existence is found in the Domesday book, complied at the command of William the Conqueror in 1085, soon after his successful invasion of England in 1066.
The Domesday Book (1086)
The Book records that, in 1086, the Manor of Burnham was held by a "Walter son of Other". The Manor was valued, to help the new King establish how much taxes he could expect to collect from the Counties. And in 1086, the value of the vast estate was "18 hides", worth a massive £10. Walter's son, William, took possession of the estate, along with a new surname of "Windsor". It is said that William was the founder of the Windsor family. The estate remained with the family of Other until it was split between Duncan de Lascelles and Ralph Hodeng in 1204.
Burnham was largely a farming town. The land around Burnham supported sheep, cattle and swine. The Thames was a great provider of Eels, according to the Domesday Book, and probably Salmon, according to many other sources. Burnham, being situated right between Oxford and Bath to its West and London to its East, and on the main road between these great towns, found a ready market for its produce.
Henry III and Burnham Abbey (1266)
Henry III's reign proved very significant to Burnham. He was a poor king, spending much of the country's wealth frivolously. He led the country as an absolute monarch and became very unpopular. In May 1264, a movement headed by the Londoner Simon de Montford, attacked and defeated the King. He was imprisoned, along with his brother Richard and son Edward, soon to become Edward I. Simon de Montford immediately proceeded to set up a new system of government, which he called "Parliament", to prevent a future King from being able to mis-govern England in the way Henry had done.
Somehow, in May 1265 Edward managed to escape captivity. By July, he had gathered together a vast army of his father's supporters, and on 3 August 1265 decimated the armies of Simon de Montford in the Battle of Evesham. The King was restored to power and his brother Richard, was freed. Richard, the Earl of Cornwall, was so relieved to have survived that in 1266, he founded Burnham Abbey, quite possibly as a thanksgiving to God.
The Abbey was a centre for religious activity for the area for several centuries, and reinforced the importance of Burnham village. After Henry VIII dissolved the Catholic church system in favour of the newly created Church of England in 1529, the abbey fell into ruins. The magnificent Abbey has since been revived and is now the centre of a community known as 'The Sisters of the Precious Blood'. There are some great pictures of the Abbey on the Bucks County Council web site. (Click here for a link).
During its ascendancy, Burnham Abbey presided over some great and some awful times for Burnham.
Life in Burnham (1200)
Some time between 1150 and 1200, the Normans built a great church which was dedicated to St Peter. The church still stands resplendent in the heart of Burnham even today. At that time, the major output of Burnham was farming produce. The farms were owned by a small number of very wealthy families. The output of the farms were sold in the thriving Burnham market. The large majority of the population of Burnham were serfs, working on the farms. Serfs were very poorly paid and were obliged to spend a certain amount of time working for their masters with no pay. Of course, at the time, the laws we enjoy today that provide safety of ownership and life did not exist. So the serfs would probably have felt far less antagonism towards their masters who, in return for their serfs obedience, provided security, housing and food.
In 1271, the Abbess of Burnham was granted a formal "market" on Thursdays. There is evidence of a grant for repair of a Bridge over the river Thames in 1298, no doubt supporting the activities market traders.
The Black Death (1349)
It is probable that the unequal relationship between land owners and their serfs caused deep tension. Whether or not this is true in Burnham, in 1349, an event occurred of such awfulness that the entire society of the whole of England changed forever. The Black Death came. The archdeacon recorded at the time that 77 clergy alone died during that year. This terrible death rate was common through the entire country, with somewhere between one third and one half of the entire population of England dying. In 1381, the death knell of the feudal system could be heard with the Peasants Revolution. It was brutally put down by the King but the brutality seems to have served merely to agitate the growing waves of discontent amongst the serfs.
As the social order changed during the 1300s and 1400s, the ruling Churches became increasing strict in their regulation of society. One of the huge scandals at the time was the translation, by Wycliffe in the early 1400s, of the Bible into English. Wycliffe rationalised that the Bible would be more understandable by the general population if it were written in English. This caused absolute uproar amongst the Churches who ordered the Bibles to be burnt, along with many of the people who had helped Wycliffe publish the books.
As the town of Maidenhead started to increase its significance, so did the bridge over the Thames. In 1460, a completely new bridge was erected over the river. Maidenhead was becoming an increasingly important village, which probably caused the road to Maidenhead to become the main route from London to Oxford and Bath, diverting traffic and markets from the centre of the Burnham village.
Henry VIII and the Church Dissolution (1536)
As Church corruption and mis-management grew during the 1400s, so did the resentment. In the early 1500s, therefore, when Henry VIII rebelled against the Catholic church, there was a ground swell of support amongst many of the population.
In 1536, Henry VIII passed a law to dissolve the monasteries. The purge did not take long to reach Burnham. The abbess of Burnham, Margeret Gibson, refused to swear allegiance to the King and was replaced by Alice Baldwin. The Abbey of Reading, Hugh Faringdon, who also refused the oath, was put to death in front of the gates of his own Abbey. Strangely, Burnham Abbey was not dissolved immediately. It appears that Alice Baldwin put in a good work to the King for the Burnham nuns. They had doubtless done good work for the community, which gave the Abbey a further three years life before the abbess and nine nuns were forced to sign the Deed of Surrender in September 1539. The Burnham churches had joined the newly formed Church of England.
Burnham Achievers (1550 - 1800)
The social revolution that had started shortly after the Black Plague was bringing with it increasing expectations of the general population. By the mid 1500s, local government was springing up in Burnham and with it, the Parish Register was commenced by Vicar John Wright. The Register will have served as a legal and taxing register and records the demise of the trade in wool and cloth that had served Burnham so well over the previous centuries. One of the notable "sons of Burnham" at the time was Paul Wentworth. He was a member of Parliament in the 1580s. He may well have been an influence in the Parliamentary motion requiring every dead body to be buried in woolen - an attempt by the government to create demand for the Wool barons of the time. He died in 1593 and the inscription commemorating his remains can still be found in Burnham Abbey.
Another famous Burnham resident around that time was the vicar Edward Hawtrey. He was a loyal supporter of Charles I, who was deposed in 1649 by the Puritan Oliver Cromwell. He was expelled by Cromwell and was only reinstated when Charles's son, Charles II regained the throne in 1660. He died in 1669 and is honoured by a touching monument dedicated by his son, now knows as the Hawtrey memorial.
Echoing one of the concerns to Burnham residents today are the entries on vagrancy, the Travellers of the 17th century. The laws against vagrancy were severe. Between 1690 and 1699, the Register records no less than 15 floggings, several of the victims being women.
Life for Burnham residents had its upside. In 1736, the poet Gray stayed with his uncle Johnathan Rogers, probably at Burnham Grove on the outskirts of Burnham. After a visit to Burnham Beeches, he complains in a letter to a friend that he has to write the letter standing up, because "dogs take up every chair in the house". He describes the visit to the Beeches in glowing terms, overcome with their beauty and attraction, ending with this poem of how he felt about nature's finest:
"And as they bow their hoary tops, relate
In murm'ring sounds the dark decrees of fate;
While visions, as poetic eyes avow,
Cling to each leaf, and swarm on ev'ry bough."
It is probable that Gray's Elegy was partly inspired by his stay in Burnham, with descriptions in the classic book including the "babbling brook, hard by the nodding beech with old fantastic roots".
The Workhouse (1763 - 1844)
Another terrible time for the residents of Burnham was in 1768. Smallpox erupted and at 78, burials were double their usual number. Just five years earlier, in 1763, a workhouse was built at a cost of £245. Workhouses were intended initially as a provision for the poor. The Workhouse will have experienced huge strain as the impact of this killer disease was felt.
The Workhouse provided shelter and food in exchange for work. It was a very strict institutions. The rules for living in the Workhouse were elaborate. One rule, for example, insisted that anyone who was able had to attend church. Another was that all church-goers had to return to the Workhouse immediately after the service. The punishment for loitering at the Church was being deprived of a meal. Workhouses would soon fall out of favour with the rulers in the London Parliament. The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 was designed to eradicate paupers and made them places intended to be "last resort" refuges. To disincentives paupers from using them as refuges, the law forced unions of parishes to carry out poor relief in a new, and less costly, way. It was certainly no bargain to be forced to live in a workhouse. In 1844, just ten years after the frightful Act, the purpose of the law had been achieved and the Workhouse was converted to an infants school. At that time, there was only one other school in Burnham, Gore School.
Emergence of 21st century Burnham
In the 18th century, the parish of Burnham consisted of: Town and Wood, Cippenham, East Burnham, Britwell and Upper and Lower Boveney. William Wyndham Grenville became the primary landowner in the late 1700's and was Foreign Secretary from 1791-1801 and Prime Minister from 1806-1807.
Over the last 150 years, major changes have taken place in Burnham. Perhaps the most significant single event to change the course of Burnham history was the coming of the railways. The rail station brought with it unparalleled access to the main towns, which caused a population explosion the likes of which had never been seen before in the area.
Housing developments and commercial properties replaced farmland. West Town Farm, dating back to the 'dark ages', survived thanks only to Green Belt status and is now one of the last remains of the great tradition of Burnham's farming past.
St Peter's is the one of the oldest building in Burnham having been built mainly in the 13th and 14th centuries. Major restoration was carried out in the mid 19th century.
In 1871 the Gore school closed and a new school was built at the west end of Church Street. Burnham Parish Council was set up in 1894 to deal with civic affairs, leaving the Vestry to deal solely with religious matters. The separation between Church and State started centuries before was running its course.
A fire brigade was started in the early 19th century and by late in the century, there were 12 volunteer firemen. A new Fire Station with a bell tower was built in 1908. At the turn of the century the Post Office was part of the chemist's shop. When a stationary shop was opened in 1939, the Post Office and sorting office moved there. It remained there until the early 1960's. The Police Station in Stomp Road was built in 1928.
The Crispin, Swan, Five Bells and the George were all listed before 1822. A Reading Room and Library opened in the High Street in 1853. The Burnham Cricket Club began competing with neighbouring clubs around 1870. The Burham Football Club was formed in 1878 and was only the second to be formed in the county. That same year, Burnham Beeches was bought by the London County Council to be preserved for the benefit of the public. By 1883 the Workmen's Reading Room was moved to larger premises in Church Street. A new Workmen's Institute was built in 1903 to contain a library, billiard and card rooms and an entertainment hall. By the 1920's there were Hockey, Tennis, Rifle and Bowls clubs.
In the 1950's the two church schools were sufficient to serve the community. The Council Rooms over the Fire Station housed the library. Since then, the Health Centre, Day Centre and Youth club were built at Minniecroft Road. The Priory was sold for office use and Burnham Park Hall was built. Many housing estates and eight new schools have been built.
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