20th Century
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At Christmas 1085 William the Conqueror commissioned a great survey to discover the resources and taxable values of all the boroughs and manors in England. He wanted to discover who owned what, how much it was worth, and how much was owed to him as King.
There is no mention of the local villages in the original Domesday Book.
Princes Risborough was called Riseberge or Risenberga.
Domesday Book and Guide is kept in the National Archives. It has been translated from Latin and available on-line.
In 1986 the technology of the day quickly became obsolete and data recovery has seen several projects come and go since, but in 2024 we can now see most of it at Domesday 1995
The BBC first requested schools, civic societies and similar organisations to assist in writing a modern day Domesday Book - a type of inventory of all that an area contains - and when they received insufficient response to cover all areas, they extended the date they had in mind and asked other organisations to take part.
The Loosley Row & Lacey Green Women's Institute received a request in summer, 1985 and Kathleen Turner and I volunteered. Had we known just what it would entail we might not have done but we thought two of us could handle it and it would be easier than co-ordinating the work of several.
The booklet and form came, with the grid reference for our square of the map and we went out to do a survey of primary, secondary, tertiary use of land: - farming, forestry, factories, that sort of thing. Our area included Loosley Row, Lacey Green and bits of Speen, Walter's Ash and Saunderton. We had charts to fill in as to numbers of schools, churches, food stores and so on but as the lists covered all parts of the country. Town or country we had nil entries for some categories - no theatres, dance halls, studios etc. but our village hall covered all this and more. Public houses had to be listed, 'bus services, doctors, dentists, even if showing nil in our area and the charts themselves were pretty informative.
When it came to expanding on different subjects we could choose particular headings which had to include key words as the whole entry had to have cross references. Although we were aware that we had to write one TV "page" for each subject and not run over, and although we knew we had so many lines of so many characters, it was still very hard to write economically and still make the subject sound interesting and not like a list itself.
Even this sounds easier than it was with instructions not being clear and we had to check on a number of things as we went along. "Characters", for instance, covered every letter, punctuation mark and spaces between.
We tried to write briefly to fill the available space but no more. Although when it is a question of reducing by a few words, after editing and re-editing, it becomes harder not to alter the essentials. Even after we had altered and then altered again we found the title was counted, so words had still to be eliminated yet leave the meaning the same. We were allowed to reflect people's attitudes - easier said than done.
A certain amount of research was necessary and at one time we read out some of our pages at a W.I. meeting and members made comments and suggestions which we endeavoured to incorporate.
Letters and telephone calls, local and to London, were necessary and we went around the area surveying and asking questions which was interesting and often surprising but also very time consuming. We composed the introductory text together, then each took the subjects we felt we could expand on and wrote them on our own, meeting only for checking and discussions in between.
Most people were helpful although not all and it was not easy to obtain information on the building of the underground communications centre at Strike Command, as you might imagine. As I remember one or two subjects were jointly written and it was easier for Kathleen to come to me so that I typed out and changed what we composed as we went along.
The big day came to put it all on to the "floppy disc" and we were lucky enough to be able to use Adrian Cave's computer and have him nearby at the ready to see we did the right things. At first we could do nothing. We followed the instructions sent to us but could not "enter" and both knowing nothing of computers and security we tried everything we could think of, as did Adrian, checking information and reference numbers, dashing home to see if any information had been overlooked and left there. Then I went round to see Miss Juliette Drage who taught at the Secondary School in Princes Risborough, where they had joined in the project and covered their own grid square. She kindly telephoned a colleague and arranged to meet us with all information sent to them. It was found that we had not been sent an essential booklet with a code word without which we could not open up the disc.
After that, some days later, we were able to proceed. We continued to edit as we went along and it all took quite a time putting the information onto the disc but it was the part we most enjoyed really, in a way, apart from a fright we had when we thought we had accidentally "wiped" the disc, knowing so little about computers.
We could decide which names and phrases should stand out by being colour highlighted on the screen but this did not reproduce in the same way. In those days it was all black and white in print and dot and matrix also, not to mention being on one long continuous folder of paper with a type of bracket where colour had "highlighted".
We were asked to send four pictures, colour transparencies of the area and asked my son, Jeffrey, to take one film from which we could choose those we thought suitable. He and I often walked round the area and we went on walks with an eye to deciding from where to take pictures, sometimes looking through the camera viewer. Then his father took him in the car with a ladder to decide again before finally taking the actual pictures during the summer vacation of 1985. We took first choice from the full film to show W.I. members for them to choose the final ones to be sent, signed away our copyright to photographs and material and just about made it to the deadline.
Like the meal which takes hours to prepare and cook, looks simple and takes half an hour to eat, reading this and the copy we have of the Domesday entry does not give a true indication of the time it took but we were glad to be involved.
The completed Domesday Book is on two discs which would take someone 7 years, viewing 24 hours of the day to complete we are told. Apart from receiving thanks, no further direct information about the project was received from the BBC and no one hears about it these days, certainly no libraries locally appear to have had a copy. No other similar project has been mooted since.
- Chiltern Hills
We cover part of an area of outstanding natural beauty high in the Chiltern hills between High Wycombe and Princes Risborough. This survey covers the villages of Lacey Green and Loosley Row and Parts of Speen, Saunderton and Walters Ash. They all began as small farming settlements in ancient times although today they have expanded considerably into dormitory areas including official married quarters for service personnel. The principal land use is agriculture but most people have other occupations. Some work in local industry or RAF Walters Ash but many travel out of the area to work. The estimated population of what we will refer to as Lacey Green is not more than 4000.
- RAF High Wycombe Lacey Green
Despite its name this large RAF station is in the village of Walters Ash. The station contains the headquarters of strike command which controls all the U.K. front line aircraft world wide except for those in Germany. It is an essential part of the NATO organisation. The domestic part of the station is like a medium-sized village. There are more than five hundred married quarters for officers and men and accommodation for single personnel both male and female. There are two churches, Anglican and Roman Catholic, a NAAFI shop, a community centre and the Chiltern 100 club which is open to all ranks. The station is almost self-contained and the families of personnel do not seem to mix with the rest of the villagers.
- NATO Bunker - Lacey Green
In 1983 the Ministry of Defence leased 11 acres of land adjoining RAF High Wycombe from the National Trust Bradenham estate. It was for the construction of an underground communications centre to replace the outdated system at present in use in Strike Command HQ. There was an outcry from many members of both the National Trust and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament who disapproved of the use to which the centre would be put in a nuclear war. Despite the fuss, construction has gone ahead and the bunker will be completed in 1986. It is not a bolt hole for the Air Marshals in time of war and we are assured that it is pure coincidence that a reservoir is being built right next to it.
Produced by: Madeline Cleaver, Kathleen Turner, Jeffrey Cleaver & Adrian Cave
