Facts about Chesham
General Info
Chesham (/ˈtʃɛʃəm/, locally /ˈtʃɛsəm/, or /ˈtʃɛzəm/) is a market town and civil parish in Buckinghamshire, England. It is 11 miles (18 km) south-east of the county town of Aylesbury and 25.8 miles (41.5 km) north-west of Charing Cross, central London, and is part of the London commuter belt. It is in the Chess Valley[2] and surrounded by farmland. The earliest records of Chesham as a settlement are from the second half of the 10th century although there is archaeological evidence of people in this area from around 8000 BC. Henry III granted the town a royal charter for a weekly market in 1257.
History
There is archaeological evidence of the earliest settlement during the Late Mesolithic period around 5000 BC in East Street, Chesham where a large quantity of Flint tools were found.[5] The earliest farming evidence from the Neolithic era around 2500 BC. Bronze Age tribes settled in the valley around 1800 BC and they were succeeded by Iron Age Belgic people of the Catuvellauni tribe around 500 BC. Between 150 and 400 AD there is evidence of Romano-British farming and nearby at Latimer there is archaeological evidence of a Roman villa and the planting of grapevines. However the area was then deserted until the Saxon period around the 7th century’.
