The village of Burnham lies in the south of Buckinghamshire, one of the smaller counties of England, on land rising from the flood plain of the River Thames near Boveney. Evidence suggests that people were travelling through this area from the Palaeolithic period onwards. Flint tools have been found in the Thames Valley gravels at Burnham and Iver, while metalworkers of the third millennium BCE left hoards of used and broken tools and scrap metal in Slough and Burnham. Bronze Age artefacts have been discovered at Taplow, with later Iron Age finds at Dorney. Buckinghamshire saw relatively little activity during the Roman period, although several Roman roads passed briefly through the northern part of the county.

 

Following the Norman Conquest of 1066, Duke William of Normandy became King of England and redistributed much of the land previously held by the English nobility to his followers. When the Domesday Book was compiled in 1086, it recorded that Walter Fitz-Otho held the Manor of Burnham. The manor comprised 18 hides of land, woodland sufficient for 600 pigs, and was valued at £10. There were 28 villagers, seven smallholders and two slaves. (A hide was originally the amount of land that could be ploughed in a year by one plough drawn by an eight-ox team, although its size varied according to soil quality.)

 

Early westward routes may have used a ferry across the Thames at Maidenhead. Several present-day footpaths in Burnham and Taplow follow older tracks aligned southwest to northeast, ending at Maidenhead Bridge. It has been suggested that a packhorse route ran from the east along what is now Gore Road, at the northern end of Burnham High Street, passing either through Hitcham, across what later became the Cliveden Estate, or down Hedsor Hill to a ferry crossing to Cookham and onwards west.

The parish church near the High Street is dedicated to St Peter. Although there may once have been an earlier wooden structure, parts of the present tower are thought to date from the 12th century. The church had a major restoration beginning in 1891. During this work the tower was modified to include a spire covered in oak shingles, and a new turret staircase was installed; until then, the bells had been rung from the ground floor. Two additional bells were added in 1897, bringing the total to eight.

 

The Cornerstone building, constructed in 1986, contains offices for the vicar and church staff as well as meeting spaces, allowing the church to remain open to visitors on weekday mornings. St Peter’s contains many notable monuments, historic and modern stained glass, and the Hastings hatchment commemorating John Hastings, who married Elizabeth Cage of Britwell Court and died in 1656. The Dropmore Pew in the north transept had its own private entrance (now leading to the Almond Room) and was used by Lord and Lady Grenville of Dropmore. Lord Grenville built Dropmore House in 1792 and served as Prime Minister from 1806 to 1807, when the first Abolition of the Slave Trade Act was passed. He died in 1834; Lady Anne Grenville died in 1864. St Anne’s Church at Dropmore was dedicated to her memory, opening in 1865 and being consecrated in 1866. The ecclesiastical district of Dropmore was created in 1867, taking parts of Burnham, Dorney, Hitcham and Taplow parishes. There has never been a civil parish of Dropmore.

 

In 1266 Richard, King of the Romans and second son of King John, founded a house for Augustinian canonesses on part of his land near the Manor of Cippenham, south of Burnham village. He granted the abbess land in the north of the parish, water rights to a mill and stream in Cippenham, and the right to appoint the vicar of St Peter’s Church. The abbess thus became the Lord of the Manor. A weekly Thursday market and an annual fair on the feast of St Matthew were granted. The Market Hall in Church Street (sometimes known as St Peter’s Street) bore the dates 1271–1539, before its demolition around 1938.

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Although Burnham Abbey was a small establishment, it played an important role in the local area, employing women as servants and agricultural workers and providing education for a small number of young children. In 1539 the abbess was forced to sign the deed of surrender, and following the Dissolution the abbey church was deliberately roofless to prevent further use. The site was leased to William Tyldesley and became a farm. Over time, the land around 300 acres was sold outright.

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By 1874 it belonged to John Pocock, who left it in trust to his niece, Mrs Wright, for her children. Farming continued into the early 20th century. In 1914 the abbey site, reduced and 10 acres of the site, was sold to James Bissley of Maidenhead. Some buildings were restored, and in 1916 it became home to an enclosed Anglican religious community, the Society of the Precious Blood.

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In 2024 the community had dwindled to ten members, and the decision was taken to relocate and sell the site.

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The railway crosses the southern part of Burnham parish on an embankment, raising it to cross the Thames at Maidenhead by a two-arched bridge with additional side arches. The bridge was originally built using bricks made in Burnham and, at the time of its construction, had the longest single uninterrupted span over the river, a requirement of the Thames Commissioners. When the Great Western Railway gauge was changed in May 1892 from 7ft 0¼ inches (2,140 mm) to the standard 4 ft 8½ in (1,435 mm), the bridge was widened and the number of tracks increased from two to four.

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A station on the Taplow side of the river, originally called Maidenhead Riverside, opened in 1838. It was renamed Taplow in 1869 but closed in 1872 when the present Taplow station opened further east. Burnham Beeches Station opened in July 1899, and visitors often walked from there to Burnham Beeches, which had been purchased by the City of London in 1879. The station became known as Burnham (Bucks) in 1930 and simply Burnham in 1975.

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The railway runs almost parallel to the Bath Road, which crosses the Thames on Maidenhead’s stone bridge. A wooden bridge existed here by 1280, although it was already in poor repair. Successive wooden bridges suffered similar problems until Maidenhead Corporation commissioned a stone bridge in 1772. Designed by Robert Taylor, it opened in 1777 and remains in use today, having been a toll bridge until 1903. Until 1974 the River Thames formed the boundary between Berkshire and Buckinghamshire.

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Burnham parish lies east of Taplow, with Dorney to the south, Beaconsfield to the north and Slough to the east. Cippenham occupied a large area in the eastern part of the parish and was renowned for its extensive cornfields. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, farms benefited from manure collected from coaching inns in Windsor and along the Bath Road, allowing improved crop yields without leaving land fallow.

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After the First World War there was a need for a large site to process returned military vehicles. The government selected land in Cippenham next to the railway, a decision that attracted local and national criticism. Nevertheless, the Slough Trading Company was formed in 1920 to repair and sell the vehicles, and the site later became the Slough Trading Estate the first commercial estate of its kind, bringing significant employment to the area.

 

In 1974 Slough became part of Berkshire to balance the creation of the new city of Milton Keynes in north Buckinghamshire. Subsequent local government changes abolished South Bucks District Council, and Burnham Parish Council now reports directly to Buckinghamshire Council.

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The Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds is an ancient office closely associated with Burnham and is still heard of today in connection with Members of Parliament. In Saxon times, when forests and woodlands were often lawless, the Abbot of St Albans granted lands to a Saxon knight, Thurnoth, on condition that he protected the district and provided safe passage for monks and pilgrims. After the deaths of Thurnoth and his successors, the King appointed a steward to maintain order. The Chiltern Hundreds comprised Burnham, Stoke and Desborough Hundreds, and the steward received fines imposed by the Hundred Courts.

 

Although the role ceased to have practical significance after 1679, it survives as a constitutional formality. Since a resolution of 1623 declared that an MP could not simply resign, the acceptance of an “office of profit under the Crown” became how Members of Parliament vacate their seats.

 

The Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds is one such office.

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Among those who have held it are Stanley Baldwin, John Profumo, John Stonehouse, Roy Jenkins, Neil Kinnock, Betty Boothroyd, Tony Blair, Sadiq Khan and Boris Johnson.