High Wycombe

High Wycombe is set in a valley in the Chilterns. The A40 and the A404 cross here, the A404 being very steep on both sides of the town (Marlow Hill and Amersham Hill). The routes into the town were described in 1861 by James Joseph Sheahan in his History & Topography of Buckinghamshire, “The approaches are by level roads on the East and West sides, but on the North and South sides the hills are very steep and the roads almost precipitous”.
Although never the County town of Buckinghamshire, High Wycombe is the largest town in the county, excluding Milton Keynes (a unitary authority). Romans occupied the area we now know as the Rye from about AD 150. The river powered mills along the valley in the 11th century. In medieval times some of the corn mills were converted to mills used in the cloth trade, but by 1600 this trade had largely died out to be replaced by paper mills. Lace making began about the same time as the paper industry. The chair making industry, for which High Wycombe became famous, probably began in the later part of the eighteenth century. Wycombe was surrounded by Beech (in the 1800s referred to as Buckinghamshire’s weed), elm and ash trees making it ideally suited to chair production. Men known as Bodgers turned the chair legs on pole-lathes worked by a foot treadle, often working in the woods.

This is a 2 mile round trip walk. There is a footbridge to cross with 26 steps which might make it difficult with a pushchair and would preclude wheelchairs. Please allow 2 hours to complete this Trail.

Waterstones in High Wycombe stock this Trail.