Penn, Buckinghamshire

{{Short description|Village in Buckinghamshire, England}} {{Use dmy dates|date=October 2019}} {{Use British English|date=June 2025}} {{Infobox UK place |type = [[Village]] and [[civil parish]] |official_name = Penn |coordinates = {{coord|51.633|-0.681|format=dms|display=inline,title}} |os_grid_reference = SU912935 |static_image_name = Holy Trinity, Penn, Bucks - geograph.org.uk - 333169.jpg |static_image_caption = Holy Trinity parish church |population = 3,961 |population_ref = ([[United Kingdom Census 2011|2011 Census]] including Tylers Green)<ref>[http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/dissemination/LeadKeyFigures.do?a=3&b=11127487&c=penn&d=16&e=62&g=6404371&i=1001x1003x1032x1004&m=0&r=1&s=1359814949789&enc=1 Neighbourhood Statistics 2011 Census] {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161021055701/http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/dissemination/LeadKeyFigures.do?a=3&b=11127487&c=penn&d=16&e=62&g=6404371&i=1001x1003x1032x1004&m=0&r=1&s=1359814949789&enc=1 |date=21 October 2016}}, accessed 2 February 2013.</ref> |unitary_england = [[Buckinghamshire Council|Buckinghamshire]] |lieutenancy_england = [[Buckinghamshire]] |region = South East England |country = England |constituency_westminster = [[Wycombe (UK Parliament constituency)| Wycombe]] |post_town = [[High Wycombe]] |postcode_district = HP10 |postcode_area = HP |dial_code = 01494 |website = }}

'''Penn''' is a village and [[civil parish]] in [[Buckinghamshire]], England, about {{convert|3|mi|km}} north-west of [[Beaconsfield]] and {{convert|4|mi|km}} east of [[High Wycombe]]. The parish's {{convert|3991|acres|ha}} cover Penn village and the hamlets of Penn Street, [[Knotty Green]], [[Forty Green, Penn|Forty Green]] and [[Winchmore Hill, Buckinghamshire|Winchmore Hill]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/bucks/vol3/pp235-240|title=Parishes: Penn &#124; British History Online|website=British-history.ac.uk|access-date=28 February 2022}}</ref> The population was estimated at 4,168 in 2019.<ref>[https://www.citypopulation.de/en/uk/southeastengland/admin/buckinghamshire/E04001576__penn/ City Population]. Citypopulation.de, Retrieved 12 December 2020</ref>

==History== The name is [[Brittonic languages|Brittonic]] in origin, comparable with the modern [[Welsh Language|Welsh]] typonym ''pen'', and may mean "hill top" or "end". Penn stands on a strong [[promontory]] of the [[Chiltern Hills]]. From the tower of [[Trinity|Holy Trinity]] Parish Church, it is claimed to be possible to see into several other counties.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.chilternsaonb.org/uploads/files/AboutTheChilterns/People_and_History/PDFs/HolyTrinityChurchToBeaconHill.pdf|title=Penn village around Holy Trinity Church|website=Chilternsaonb.org|access-date=28 February 2022|archive-date=28 February 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220228173535/https://www.chilternsaonb.org/uploads/files/AboutTheChilterns/People_and_History/PDFs/HolyTrinityChurchToBeaconHill.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref>

==Penn family== Segraves Manor, the principal seat in Penn, belonged to the Penn family. [[Sybil Penn]], wife of David, was dry nurse and foster mother to [[Edward VI of England|King Edward VI]] and Lady of the Bed Chamber to his sister, [[Elizabeth I of England|Queen Elizabeth I]].

The Penn estate directly benefited from the Slave Compensation Act of 1837. The family owned two plantations in Jamaica and a total of 210 individuals split between the Clarendon and the Oak plantations. The estate was awarded a total of 4095 pounds, the equivalent of half a million pound today.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/-828950852|title=Summary of Individual &#124; Legacies of British Slavery|website=Ucl.ac.uk|access-date=28 February 2022}}</ref>

The Penn family of Penn were not known to be related to [[William Penn]] (after whose father, [[Admiral Sir William Penn]], [[Pennsylvania]] is named), whose family came from Wiltshire. In 1735 the manor of Penn passed from the unmarried Roger Penn to his sole heir and sister, who was married to the 3rd Baronet Scarsdale, an ancestor of the Lords Curzon. Penbury Grove House was built in 1902 by the American engineer [[Horace Field Parshall]] as a replica of [[Pennsbury Manor]], William Penn's house in Pennsylvania, Parshall wrongly thinking that these Penns shared a connection with Pennsylvania.

==Myth== Penn is reputedly haunted by the ghost of an 18th-century farm labourer, who appears laughing, on a phantom horse.<ref name=folkloremythslegends>{{Cite book |last=Ash |first=Russell |date=1973 |title=Folklore, Myths and Legends of Britain |publisher=Reader's Digest Association Ltd |page=274 |isbn=9780340165973}}</ref>

==Commons and sports== Penn Street, [[Knotty Green]] and [[Forty Green, Penn|Forty Green]] are hamlets in the parish, each within a mile of the main village.

Penn Street and Knotty Green have village commons, where the Penn Street and Knotty Green cricket clubs play.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.pennstreetcc.co.uk/default.aspx|title=Penn Street Cricket Club : home|website=Pennstreetcc.co.uk|access-date=28 February 2022}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://knottygreencc.hitssports.com/|title=Home|website=Knottygreencc.hitssports.com|access-date=28 February 2022}}</ref> The local [[public house]]s, The Squirrel in Penn Street and The Red Lion in Knotty Green, face their respective commons. Forty Green also has a pub – The Royal Standard of England. Penn has a [[non-League football]] club, [[Penn & Tylers Green F.C.]], which plays at Elm Road.

==Penn today== The area is part of the Chiltern Hills and popular with people who commute to London due to its proximity to road junction 3 of the [[M40 motorway]] at [[Loudwater, Buckinghamshire|Loudwater]], mainline rail at [[Beaconsfield]] and [[London Underground]] at [[Amersham]], both linked with the city.

Penn remains home to [[Frederick Curzon, 7th Earl Howe|Earl Howe]] of the Penn-Curzon-Howe dynasty, which gained more wealth through the [[Inclosure Acts]], which gave legal property rights to land previously in communal use. In 1855, ownership of Common Wood and Penn Wood passed to the 1st Earl Howe, forcing many local people and their livestock off the land. This caused general unrest within the community. For centuries, villagers had sustained themselves by grazing their animals on the common and gathering what they could from the land. When the woods became private property, many were plunged further into poverty. Years of unlawful protest followed, when poaching was rife and fences were pulled down as local people tried to retrieve what they deemed legitimately theirs.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/visiting-woods/woods/penn-wood/|title=Penn Wood|website=Woodland Trust|access-date=28 February 2022}}</ref>

Penn Street churchyard contains items from [[Gopsall]], Lord Howe's other country house in [[Leicestershire]]. The [[lychgate]] and Countess Howe memorial were moved from [[Congerstone]] in 1919, when the family sold the Gopsall Estate.

==In popular culture== {{unreferenced section|date=November 2022}} The Cottage Bookshop in Penn was one location in "A Tale of Two Hamlets", an episode of the [[ITV Network|ITV]] television programme, ''[[Midsomer Murders]]''. It was also used to film an episode called "[[List of ChuckleVision episodes#Series 15:2002-2003|Bookshop Chuckles]]" in the children's television show, ''[[ChuckleVision]]'', and the three-acre set for ''[[Nanny McPhee]]'' was constructed there.

==Notable people== *The novelist [[Elizabeth Taylor (novelist)|Elizabeth Taylor]] died in Penn in 1975. *Medical pioneers Dr [[Louisa Garrett Anderson]] (1873–1943), her partner Dr [[Flora Murray]] and the children's writer [[Alison Uttley]], author of the [[Little Grey Rabbit]] stories, are buried in the churchyard of Holy Trinity.{{citation needed|date=April 2015}} *The actor and singer [[Stanley Holloway]] lived in Penn with his wife and son for many years in the 1950s and 1960s.<ref>{{Cite book |title= Wiv a little bit o' luck: The life story of Stanley Holloway |last=Holloway |first=Stanley |author2=Richards, Dick |year=1967 |publisher=Frewin |location=[[London]] |asin= B0000CNLM5 |oclc=3647363}} p. 322.</ref> *The countertenor [[Michael Chance]] was born in the village. *The renowned Scottish preacher [[Alexander Whyte]] (1836–1921) spent his last months in the village and preached his last sermon at the Free Methodist Chapel in Church Road. *[[Thomas Horder, 1st Baron Horder]], physician to the royal family (as was [[Bertrand Dawson, 1st Viscount Dawson of Penn]], who chose the village for the territorial designation of his peerage) lived in the village for several years.{{citation needed|date=March 2017}} *David Blakely, murdered by [[Ruth Ellis]], lived on Hammersley Lane with his parents. Ellis was the last woman to be judicially executed in Britain.<ref>{{Cite news |date=12 December 2003 |title=Is this the time to put this sorry story to rest? |first=Vince |last=Soodin |work=Bucks Free Press |access-date=2020-02-17 |url=https://www.bucksfreepress.co.uk/news/441799.is-this-the-time-to-put-this-sorry-story-to-rest/}}</ref> *Canadian author [[Margaret Laurence]] (1926–1987) lived in Elm Cottage on Beacon Hill in 1963–1973. It had been previously owned by the politician Sir Donald Maclean and Lady Maclean, parents of the [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] spy [[Donald Maclean (spy)|Donald Maclean]]. *The princesses [[Sophia Singh|Sophia Duleep Singh]] (suffragette) and [[Catherine Hilda Duleep Singh]] (1876–1948), daughters of the [[Maharaja Duleep Singh]] (1871–1942) and [[Bamba Müller]], lived in Penn during World War II and hosted children evacuated from London as well as German Jewish refugees.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Anand |first=Anita |title=Sophia : princess, suffragette, revolutionary |publisher=Bloomsbury |year=2015 |isbn=9781632860811 |edition= |location=New York |oclc=881092758}}</ref> *Food writer and TV chef [[Mary Berry]] (born 1935) lived in Penn for over 30 years up to 2019.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Magnus |first1=Emma |title=Mary Berry's former Buckinghamshire home on sale for £3.5 million |url=https://www.standard.co.uk/homesandproperty/celebrity-homes/mary-berrys-former-buckinghamshire-home-watercroft-on-sale-ps3-5-million-b1118551.html |website=Evening Standard |access-date=18 November 2023}}</ref> *The philosopher [[Karl Popper]] made Penn his home after moving to the UK from New Zealand in 1946<ref>{{Cite web |last=Bondi |first=Herman |title=Obituary |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/371478a0.pdf}}</ref> *In 1947, the ashes of novelist [[Elizabeth von Arnim]] and her brother, Sir Sydney Beauchamp, were mingled in the churchyard of St Margaret's, Tylers Green, Penn.<ref name=ODNB>[http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/35883 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edition (UK library card required): ''Arnim, Mary Annette &#91;May&#93; von'']. Retrieved 5 March 2014.</ref><ref>Vickers, Salley, in the introduction to Elizabeth von Arnim, 'The Enchanted April' Penguin: 2012 {{ISBN|978-0-141-19182-9}}</ref>

==References== {{Reflist}}

==External links== {{Commons category|Penn, Buckinghamshire}} *[http://www.pennandtylersgreen.org.uk/ Penn and Tyler's Green Community and Village website] – run by the Penn & Tylers Green Residents' Society – this site contains news, events, photos and a village map and articles. *[http://www.penntylersgreenfc.co.uk/ Penn and Tylers Green FC]

{{Chiltern}}

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[[Category:Villages in Buckinghamshire]] [[Category:Civil parishes in Buckinghamshire]]