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Sydenham is a small village with a total population of around 300. A large part
of the village is designated as a conservation area and there are many listed
buildings of timber framing, brick, flint and wychert under thatch and old tiled
roofs.
The place name Sydenham means by the wide river meadow and the Crowell brook
has played an important part in the villages economy throughout its history. It
was already settled by Anglo-Saxon times and Domesday Book records that there
was land for 14 ploughs and 60 acres of meadow land. There are still meadows
supporting sheep and cattle, many bearing the mark of the medieval open field
system. Only a few villagers are employed in agriculture now.
Robert Monday was a prosperous yeoman farmer. He died in 1662 and left a house
and three and twenty acres of arable land in the common fields of Kingston
Blount to the poor of Sydenham for ever together with an annual payment of 1
for the upkeep of the church. The land was exchanged for a field and allotments
in the Enclosure Award and the rents are now used to help pensioners with
heating at Christmas.
Times were very hard for agricultural workers in the first half of the 19th
century. To help alleviate the poverty a number of families from the village
were assisted to emigrate to Australia in 1843 and 1844. Five families went on
the barque Wallace in November 1843 with 18 children. Four more went on the
United Kingdom bound for Sydney in December 1843 with 14 children, two single
girls and a young man. Farm labourer William Quainton, and his little daughter
Charlotte aged one, died on the arduous voyage which took five months. Others
went on ships which included the Elizabeth, the Francis Ridley and the Kate.
That they worked hard and prospered is evident from stories told by many of
their descendants who have written or come to Sydenham to trace their roots in
the past few years.
Baroness Wenman of Thame Park gave land and money towards the building of the
National school in 1849. It was enlarged in 1886 and catered for all the village
children. In 1929 it became a junior and infant school, when the children over
11 years old walked or cycled to Chinnor. The school closed in 1949. The old
school room has been repaired and renovated and serves as a well-used village
hall.
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