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The Lee
The Lee maps
Historic maps of The Lee and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all The Lee maps
The Lee photos
We have no photos of The Lee, although we do have photos of these nearby places:
Great Missenden| Wendover| Prestwood| Great Hampden| Little Missenden| Chesham| Ellesborough| Tring| Speen| Chesham Bois| New Mill| Whiteleaf| Great Kimble| Stoke Mandeville| Hughenden Valley| Monks Risborough| Berkhamsted| Amersham On The Hill| Hazlemere| Princes Risborough| Naphill| Amersham| Bradenham| Coleshill| Latimer| Aylesbury| Little Chalfont
The Lee area books
Displaying 1 of 7 books about The Lee and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of The Lee
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Buckinghamshire memories
As A Kid
My parents were from the area, Dad from Bryants Botom, Mum from Gt Hamden. They shifted to New Zealand straight after they were married, leaving all friends and family behind. Mum always talks about Chequers. As kids, me and my two sisters were lucky enough to visit and school for a while, me at Kingshill, Sally at Hamden School, and I'm not sure where Jane went. I remember it was a drought year and also lots of snow, sounds crazy, we had days off school because of the snow, the woods around Hampden were white. Dad worked at his brother's mushroom farm, we would play in the woods behind Dad's mum's place in Bryants Bottom, looking back it was the most awesome time for me as a 9 or 10 year old. We went back to New Zealand whre we live, I have lots of family in Prestwood, Speen, and around the area.
Pednor Riding Stables
I learned to ride at Pednor stables, run by Hilary with help from her husband. They had a motley but extremely well cared-for string of horses, which grew all the time. My favourite was a 4-yr-old exmoore called Kerry, who was sold and kept on ther in livery. Bubbles was cream with wall eyes...anyone remember the others?
Hilary has always been an inspiration and although I have not followed in her footsetps, latish in life I have begun to work with horses
Dunsmore People And Happenings Remembered
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
In 1995, when the first edition of this history was published, it seemed incredibly optimistic to have had three hundred copies printed for a market which was likely to be composed in the main of the residents of about forty properties. Ten years later the stock has run out and the opportunity arises to correct some of the errors which have become very obvious and to carry out a modicum of up-dating.
It came as something of a pleasant surprise to receive reactions from different parts of the world, from relatives of people who featured in the booklet and from others. Some of the photographs used in the original book are no longer available and of those informants who provided contributions to the original a number have died, reinforcing the view that the history of the common man must be collected sooner rather than later if it is not to be lost forever.
July 2009
DUNSMORE
PEOPLE AND HAPPENINGS REMEMBERED
Anne Boleyn's Cottages
My late Sister Daphne Hemmings owned No 3 Coldharbour Cottage. She passed it on to her son Jimmy Hemmings. I have fond memories of visiting her and staying awhile in these fascinating dwellings. You wouln't want to be six-foot plus with the low doorways plus the low beams, you would crack your head on the oak beams. If anyone passed away upstairs you would have to be lowered through a trapdoor located in the front bedroom in line with the front door. As a school boy in the Second World War years I used to walk from Aylesbury to Wendover up Coombe Hill to the Monument and in the war years (if my memory serves me correct) there were dummy anti-aircraft guns all around the hills. In 1965 my wife, children and myself emigrated to Australia. In 1993 we decided to have a trip back to the UK, staying with my sister for a short time, and we decided to have a walk up Coombe Hill which I hadn't done... Read more
Spitfire
I recall a huge thermometer erected on the clock tower, it was graduated in pounds sterling with a picture of a Spitfie at the top> We children, and of course the rest of the Wendover community subscribed as much as we could as often as we could in order to puchase our very own Spitfire, as Wendover's contribution to the war effort. I was an evacuee from the bombing of London at the time, I also recall seeing an army tank sliding into a sweet shop on the corner opposite the clock tower. I wonder if any of these wonderful people who made my stay in their village so memorable are still with us today :- Mr Mathews of Mathews Bakery, Willy Swilly, Pig Farmer and Humanist. Mrs Goodson Railway Man whom I was billeted with first. And Mr and Mrs Wright, Policeman 2nd. Avril Brackly, close friend. 'Buck' Alcott, friend. Lady Garner and 'Pinky', and Bruce Hamilton, beautiful people. Mr Pentelope, teacher, and last but not least Father Masters,... Read more
Wenover C of E School
I used to go to Wendover Primary School when it was situated beside the clock tower. The head master was then H. J. Figg Edgington. I began in Mrs Tott's class, then Mrs Connolly's, then Mr Spencer's, then Gertrude Agatha Jones's. It was the best time there. We would walk the Heron Path on nature walks, down through the 'rec towards the church and pond, then back past the stream which had sticklebacks and red throats in. We used to believe that a grey lady haunted the church tower and would pretend that we had seen her and run for our lives. Mr Edginton wore his cap and gown always and was a vicar with a dog collar. He used to spank us if we were naughty but he didn't really. He would lay us over his knee then clap his hands and pretend to. Just to let us know we had been naughty for forgetting our gym kit or whatever. I was in the school netball team and was the... Read more
The Chequers
At the age of 16 I remember picking cherries on the trees (still existing in the photo and just shown to the left of the picture) while being too embarrassed/shy to acknowledge the presence of my first "girlfriend", Valery, on her bike below.
The Chequers was my fathers local from the mid twenties until the mid eighties. He hardly missed an evening's visit during the whole of that time, so the Chequers became a rather "looming" object throughout my childhood, rather like a third (naughty) parent. But it did provide the odd Vimto and packet of Smith's crisps in the late forties/early fifties.
