Wotton Underwood is a village and civil parish in the Aylesbury Vale

Aylesbury Vale

The Aylesbury Vale is a large area of flat land mostly in Buckinghamshire, England. Its boundary is marked by Milton Keynes to the north, Leighton Buzzard and the Chiltern Hills to the east and south, Thame to the south and Bicester and Brackley to the west.The vale is named after Aylesbury, the...

 District of 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....

, about 7 miles (11.3 km) north of Thame

Thame

Thame is a town and civil parish in Oxfordshire, about southwest of the Buckinghamshire town of Aylesbury. It derives its toponym from the River Thame which flows past the north side of the town....

 in neighbouring Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....

.

The toponym

Toponymy

Toponymy is the scientific study of place names , their origins, meanings, use and typology. The word "toponymy" is derived from the Greek words tópos and ónoma . Toponymy is itself a branch of onomastics, the study of names of all kinds...

 is derived from the Old English for "farm near a wood". It is recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of annals in Old English chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the Chronicle was created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alfred the Great...

 of AD 848 as Wudotun and in the Domesday Book

Domesday Book

Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...

 of 1086 as Oltone. The affix "Underwood" was added later to distinguish the village from other places also called Wotton. The affix means "near the wood" and refers to the village's nearness to the ancient Bernwood Forest

Bernwood Forest

Bernwood was one of several forests of the ancient kingdom of England and was a Royal hunting forest. It is thought to have been set aside as Royal hunting land when the Anglo-Saxon kings had a palace at Brill in the 10th century and was a particularly favoured place of Edward the Confessor, who...

.

The present manor house

Manor house

A manor house is a country house that historically formed the administrative centre of a manor, the lowest unit of territorial organisation in the feudal system in Europe. The term is applied to country houses that belonged to the gentry and other grand stately homes...

 in the village, Wotton House

Wotton House

Wotton House, or Wotton, the manor house in Wotton Underwood , was rebuilt from the ground up between 1704 and 1714, to a design very similar to that of the contemporary version of Buckingham House, as it is known from engravings...

, dates from the early eighteenth century but has been much altered since, notably by John Soane

John Soane

Sir John Soane, RA was an English architect who specialised in the Neo-Classical style. His architectural works are distinguished by their clean lines, massing of simple form, decisive detailing, careful proportions and skilful use of light sources...

 in the 1820s.

South Pavilion, the former home of actor John Gielgud

John Gielgud

Sir Arthur John Gielgud, OM, CH was an English actor, director, and producer. A descendant of the renowned Terry acting family, he achieved early international acclaim for his youthful, emotionally expressive Hamlet which broke box office records on Broadway in 1937...

, was bought by Tony

Tony Blair

Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...

 and Cherie Blair

Cherie Blair

Cherie Blair , known professionally as Cherie Booth QC, is a British barrister working in the legal system of England and Wales. She is married to the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Tony Blair; the couple have three sons and one daughter...

 for £4m, in 2008.

Railways

The Brill Tramway

Brill Tramway

The Brill Tramway, also known as the Quainton Tramway, Wotton Tramway, Oxford & Aylesbury Tramroad and Metropolitan Railway Brill Branch, was a six-mile rail line in the Aylesbury Vale, Buckinghamshire, England...

, originally known as the Wotton Tramway and, from 1899, part of the Metropolitan Railway

Metropolitan railway

Metropolitan Railway can refer to:* Metropolitan line, part of the London Underground* Metropolitan Railway, the first underground railway to be built in London...

, which served the area, had a station named which closed in 1935 with the rest of the line.

The Great Central Railway

Great Central Railway

The Great Central Railway was a railway company in England which came into being when the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway changed its name in 1897 in anticipation of the opening in 1899 of its London Extension . On 1 January 1923, it was grouped into the London and North Eastern...

 built a line from Grendon Underwood to Princes Risborough, and upon that opened a station at Wotton

Wotton (GCR) railway station

Wotton was a railway station at Wotton Underwood, Buckinghamshire, on the Great Central Railway's link line between and Ashendon Junction.-History:...

 in 1906; this closed in 1953.

Notable residents

• The Dukes of Buckingham and Chandos
• William Grenville, 1st Baron Grenville
• John Gielgud
  John Gielgud
  Sir Arthur John Gielgud, OM, CH was an English actor, director, and producer. A descendant of the renowned Terry acting family, he achieved early international acclaim for his youthful, emotionally expressive Hamlet which broke box office records on Broadway in 1937...
  
  
• Tony Blair
  Tony Blair
  Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...