Facts about Buckingham
General Info
Gerrards Cross is a town and civil parish in south Buckinghamshire, England, separated from the London Borough of Hillingdon at Harefield by Denham, south of Chalfont St Peter and north bordering villages of Fulmer, Hedgerley, Iver Heath and Stoke Poges. It spans foothills of the Chiltern Hills and land on the right bank of the River Misbourne. It is 19.3 miles (31.1 km) west-north-west of Charing Cross, central London. Bulstrode Park Camp was an Iron Age fortified encampment.
History
The town name is new compared with the great bulk of English towns. Gerrards Cross did not exist in any formal sense until 1859, when it was formed by taking pieces out of the three parishes of Chalfont St Peter, Fulmer, Stoke Poges and Upton cum Chalvey to form a new ecclesiastical parish. It is named after the Gerrard family who in the early 17th century owned a manor here. At that time, homes which were not farms, were smallholdings clustered in a hamlet in the south of an elongated parish of Chalfont St Peter. Near its centre is the site of an Iron Age minor hillfort, Bulstrode Park Camp, which is a scheduled ancient monument.[2] Originally named Jarrett’s Cross, before the times of the Gerrard family, after a highwayman,[citation needed] some areas retain the original name, such as Jarrett’s Hill leading up to WEC International off the A40 west of the town.
