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Amersham

AmershamCivil parishes in BuckinghamshireMarket towns in BuckinghamshireOpenDomesdayTowns in Buckinghamshire
Use British English from May 2016
Amersham Old Town, The King's Arms hotel geograph.org.uk 419883
Amersham Old Town, The King's Arms hotel geograph.org.uk 419883

Amersham ( AM-ər-shəm) is a market town and civil parish in Buckinghamshire, England, in the Chiltern Hills, 27 miles (43 km) northwest of central London, 15 miles (24 km) south-east of Aylesbury and 9 miles (14 km) north-east of High Wycombe. Amersham is part of the London commuter belt. There are two distinct areas: Old Amersham, set in the valley of the River Misbourne, containing the 13th-century parish church of St. Mary's and several old pubs and coaching inns Amersham-on-the-Hill, which grew in the early 20th century around Amersham station, which was served by the Metropolitan Railway, now the Metropolitan line, and the Great Central Railway.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Amersham (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Amersham
Chiltern Avenue,

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Wikipedia: AmershamContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 51.677 ° E -0.603 °
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Address

Chiltern Avenue

Chiltern Avenue
HP6 5AY (Amersham and Villages Community Board, Amersham-on-the-hill)
England, United Kingdom
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Amersham Old Town, The King's Arms hotel geograph.org.uk 419883
Amersham Old Town, The King's Arms hotel geograph.org.uk 419883
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Amersham Martyrs Memorial
Amersham Martyrs Memorial

The Amersham Martyrs Memorial is a memorial to Protestant martyrs in Amersham, Buckinghamshire. It was established in 1931 by The Protestant Alliance. The memorial was unveiled by a Mrs L. R. Raine, a direct descendant of martyr Thomas Harding, who is commemorated on the memorial. It is located near the Rectory or Parsonage Woods opposite Ruccles Field. Access is from a footpath from or a separate footpath from Station Road.The memorial commemorates the deaths of seven local Protestant martyrs and Lollards (six men and one woman) who were burnt at the stake in 1506 and 1521. It also commemorates the deaths of three Amersham men who were burned elsewhere including Great Missenden, Smithfield, and Chesham between 1506 and 1532, as well as one Amersham man who was strangled to death at Woburn in 1514. According to the memorial's inscription, the children of William Tylsworth (-1506) and John Scrivener (-1521) were "compelled" to light the fire under their fathers' pyre. The memorial stands 100 yards from the site of the executions.At the unveiling of the memorial in 1931 the assembled crowd was exhorted by a speaker to maintain "Protestant King on a Protestant throne and be ruled by a Protestant parliament". The chairman of the Protestant Alliance, Major Richard Rigg, delivered a speech at the unveiling of the memorial and the hymn "For All the Saints" was sung. In his 2019 book Sacred and Secular Martyrdom in Britain and Ireland since 1914, John Wolffe placed the creation of the memorial and others to martyrs in the context of memorials created in the aftermath of the First World War and their accompanying militaristic imagery.A play about the martyrs, The Life and time of the Martyrs of Amersham and the Community in Which they Lived was staged by the local community in Amersham in March 2016.

Chesham branch
Chesham branch

The Chesham branch is a single-track railway branch line in Buckinghamshire, England, owned and operated by the London Underground. It runs from a junction at Chalfont & Latimer station on the Metropolitan line for 3.89 miles (6.26 km) northwest to Chesham. The line was built as part of Edward Watkin's scheme to turn his Metropolitan Railway (MR) into a direct rail route between London and Manchester, and it was envisaged initially that a station outside Chesham would be an intermediate stop on a through route running north to connect with the London and North Western Railway (LNWR). Deteriorating relations between the MR and LNWR led to the MR instead expanding to the northwest via Aylesbury, and the scheme to connect with the LNWR was abandoned. By this time much of the land needed for the section of line as far as Chesham had been bought. As Chesham was at the time the only significant town near the MR's new route, it was decided to build the route only as far as Chesham, and to complete the connection with the LNWR at a future date if it proved desirable. Local residents were unhappy at the proposed station site outside Chesham, and a public subscription raised the necessary additional funds to extend the railway into the centre of the town. The Chesham branch opened in 1889. While construction of the Chesham line was underway, the Metropolitan Railway was also expanding to the northwest, and in 1892 the extension to Aylesbury and on to Verney Junction opened. Most trains on the branch line were operating as a shuttle service between Chesham and the main line at Little Chalfont rather than as through trains to London. The opening in 1899 of the Great Central Railway at Marylebone station, Edward Watkin's connection between London and Manchester, as well as the highly successful Metro-land campaign encouraging Londoners to move to the rural areas served by the railway, led to an increase in traffic in the area, although the Chesham branch was less affected by development than most other areas served by the railway. In 1933 the Metropolitan Railway was taken into public ownership and became the Metropolitan line of the London Underground. London Underground aimed to concentrate on their core business of passenger transport in London, and saw the rural and freight lines in Buckinghamshire as an expensive anomaly. The day-to-day operation of the Chesham branch was transferred to the London and North Eastern Railway, although London Transport retained control. In 1960 the line was electrified, and from 1962 on was operated by London Underground A Stock trains. In the 1970s and 1980s decaying infrastructure and the withdrawal of subsidies brought the future of the line into doubt. As one of its last acts the Greater London Council paid for the replacement of two bridges on the line, allowing operations to continue. The centenary of the line in 1989 saw a renewal of interest and an upgrading of the trains between London Marylebone station and Chalfont & Latimer made commuting more practical, and usage of the line stabilised. The introduction of London Underground S Stock in 2010 led to the replacement of the shuttle service with half-hourly through trains to and from London.