Speen, Buckinghamshire
Encyclopedia
Parish
A parish is a territorial unit historically under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of one parish priest, who might be assisted in his pastoral duties by a curate or curates - also priests but not the parish priest - from a more or less central parish church with its associated organization...
of Princes Risborough
Princes Risborough
Princes Risborough is a small town in Buckinghamshire, England, about 9 miles south of Aylesbury and 8 miles north west of High Wycombe. Bledlow lies to the west and Monks Risborough to the east. It lies at the foot of the Chiltern Hills, at the north end of a gap or pass through the Chilterns,...
, in Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. It is located in the Chiltern Hills
Chiltern Hills
The Chiltern Hills form a chalk escarpment in South East England. They are known locally as "the Chilterns". A large portion of the hills was designated officially as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in 1965.-Location:...
, about three miles south east of the main town
Town
A town is a human settlement larger than a village but smaller than a city. The size a settlement must be in order to be called a "town" varies considerably in different parts of the world, so that, for example, many American "small towns" seem to British people to be no more than villages, while...
.
The village name is Anglo Saxon
Old English language
Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...
in origin, and means 'wood chips'. This refers to the location of the hamlet in the Chiltern Forest
Chiltern Forest
The Chiltern Forest is a large expanse of woodland that covers part of the Chiltern Hills in south east England.The area is forested mainly with beeches, though these are not indigenous to the local area. The native hard woods were almost completely deforested in the Eighteenth century for the...
where tree
Tree
A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...
s are likely to be felled fairly regularly.
Speen is the location of a home of rest for horse
Horse
The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...
s, and is the place where some horses in royal
Monarchy
A monarchy is a form of government in which the office of head of state is usually held until death or abdication and is often hereditary and includes a royal house. In some cases, the monarch is elected...
or military
Military
A military is an organization authorized by its greater society to use lethal force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country by combating actual or perceived threats. The military may have additional functions of use to its greater society, such as advancing a political agenda e.g...
service are retired to when they get too old or become injured. Many of the horses that were injured when the IRA
Provisional Irish Republican Army
The Provisional Irish Republican Army is an Irish republican paramilitary organisation whose aim was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and bring about a socialist republic within a united Ireland by force of arms and political persuasion...
bombed the Royal Horse Guards
Royal Horse Guards
The Royal Horse Guards was a cavalry regiment of the British Army, part of the Household Cavalry.Founded August 1650 in Newcastle Upon Tyne by Sir Arthur Haselrig on the orders of Oliver Cromwell as the Regiment of Cuirassiers, the regiment became the Earl of Oxford's Regiment during the reign of...
in the early 1980s were brought here (Sefton
Sefton (Horse)
Sefton was a horse who served with the British Army for 17 years from 1967 to 1984, coming to prominence when he was critically injured in the Hyde Park and Regent's Park bombings which killed seven other horses, and four soldiers. He recovered sufficiently to return to active service and was...
being the most famous), and the stables have become a popular tourist attraction for animal lovers.
With a population of around 600, Speen has a pub, the King William, and a small shop named Speen Stores. A former pub, The Old Plow, was for many years run by Ishbel MacDonald
Ishbel MacDonald
Ishbel Allan MacDonald was the daughter of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Ramsay MacDonald and his wife Margaret MacDonald née Gladstone. Margaret's death in 1911 - a year after their son David had died - left Ramsay a single father to his remaining five children...
daughter of the 20th century Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald
Ramsay MacDonald
James Ramsay MacDonald, PC, FRS was a British politician who was the first ever Labour Prime Minister, leading a minority government for two terms....
; it is now a restaurant. Speen is a short distance from Chequers
Chequers
Chequers, or Chequers Court, is a country house near Ellesborough, to the south of Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, England, at the foot of the Chiltern Hills...
, the Prime Minister of the day's country residence.
In 1928 the artist Eric Gill
Eric Gill
Arthur Eric Rowton Gill was a British sculptor, typeface designer, stonecutter and printmaker, who was associated with the Arts and Crafts movement...
moved to Pigotts at Speen, where he set up a printing press, and lettering workshop and alternative community.