Burnham, Buckinghamshire

Description
Burnham, a village and a parish in Bucks. The village stands adjacent to the G.W.R., near the river Thames, 3 miles E by N of Maidenhead, under which it has a post, money order, and telegraph office. It was formerly a market-town. The parish embraces the liberties of Lower Boveney, Britwell, East Burnham, Cippenham, and Town and Wood. Acreage, 6810 ; population of the civil parish, 2633; of the ecclesiastical, with Boveney, 2749. An Augustinian abbey was founded about a mile from the village in 1265 by Richard, king of the Romans, and given at the dissolution to William Tyldesley, and some small remains of it still exist. A fragment of an ancient forest in this locality bears the name of Burnham Beeches. Though of small extent, it is a very beautiful piece of English forest scenery, its chief feature being a number of enormous beech trees, all pollarded. It is now preserved as an open space by the Corporation of the City of London, who purchased the land in 1879. The living is a vicarage, united with the perpetual curacy of Boveney, in the diocese of Oxford; net yearly value, £300 with residence. Patron, Eton College. The church is Early and Decorated English. The perpetual curacy of Dropmore is a separate benefice. Bishop Aldrich, who died in 1556, was a native, and the learned Jacob Bryant and George Grote were residents. There is a Congregational chapel, built in 1790 and enlarged in 1859, and a workmen's reading-room, opened in 1876.