Fingest

Fingest

St Bartholomew’s Church Fingest
Fingest
Fingest shown within Buckinghamshire
OS grid reference SU777912
Civil parish
District
Shire county
Region
Country England
Sovereign state United Kingdom
Post town Henley-on-Thames
Postcode district RG9
Dialling code 01491
Police Thames Valley
Fire Buckinghamshire
Ambulance South Central
EU Parliament South East England
UK Parliament

Fingest is a village in Buckinghamshire, England. It is in the Chiltern Hills near the border with Oxfordshire. It is about six miles WSW of High Wycombe. It lies in the civil parish of Hambleden.

The village name of Fingest comes from the Anglo Saxon name Thinghurst, meaning 'wooded hill where assemblies are made'. In the 16th century the name is recorded as Thingest and then Fingest.[1] Although the early name is the etymological root of both 'Tinghurst' and 'Fingest', the latter doesn't follow the former by any normal linguistic line.

The ancient parish of Fingest included Cadmore End to the north of the village, which became a separate ecclesiastical parish in 1852.[2]

The manor of Fingest anciently belonged to St Albans Abbey. In 1163 it was given to the bishop of Lincoln. The ghost of Henry Burghersh, 14th-century Bishop of Lincoln, is reputed to haunt the area.[3] After this time it was used as the country residence for the Lincoln diocese until 1547 when it was seized by the Crown. It was then given two years later to the Duke of Somerset who exchanged it with a property belonging to Wells Cathedral.[2] The manor is now privately owned.

The civil parish of Fingest, originally based on the ecclesiastical parish, was enlarged in 1934 by adding land from the parishes of West Wycombe, Great Marlow and Hambleden. As a result, Lane End became the largest settlement in the parish, and the parish was renamed Fingest and Lane End in 1937.[4] In the 1980s the civil parish was abolished. The larger part became the parish of Lane End, and the village of Fingest was added to Hambleden parish.

Scenes of the period drama The Monuments Men were shot in Fingest in May 2013, starring George Clooney, Matt Damon and Jean Dujardin.[5]

Church

The parish church of St Bartholomew's dates from the early Norman period. It has an unusual tower, with a double vaulted roof. The church is a Grade I listed building.[6]

References

  1. ↑ Watts, Victor, ed. (2010), "Fingest", The Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names, Cambridge University Press
  2. 1 2 William Page, ed. (1925). "Parishes: Fingest". A History of the County of Buckingham: Volume 3. Institute of Historical Research. Retrieved 11 July 2011.
  3. ↑ "Green Man of Fingest - Mysterious Britain & Ireland". Mysterious Britain & Ireland. Archived from the original on 12 December 2010. Retrieved 29 August 2014.
  4. ↑ Vision of Britain website Archived 28 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine.
  5. ↑ Period Drama filmed in Fingest.
  6. ↑ English Heritage: Images of England

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