Waborne (xi cent.); Woodbourne (xvii cent.)
WOOBURN is watered by the River Wye, called also the Wickham River, which flows through it from Wycombe and enters the Thames at Bourne End. The area is 3,140 acres, comprising 1,436 of arable land, 699 of permanent grass, 289 of woods and plantations and 21 acres covered by water, and includes the hamlets of Bourne End, Spring Gardens, Havenslea, The Chequers, North End Woods and Wooburn Common. It is low-lying, the surface of the land varying between 92 ft. above the ordnance datum in the south-west of the parish near the Thames and 367 ft. on the road to the south-west of Juniper Hill. The soil is loam and gravel, the subsoil chalk and sand. A large proportion of the inhabitants find employment at the Soho paper and millboard mills, for which this parish has long been famous, others at the Clapton Mill, worked by Messrs. The Thames is spanned by a railway bridge and by a toll bridge for the road from Bourne End to Cookham in Berkshire.
Before the Conquest Leuric, one of Earl Harold's men, held LEDE MANOR. In 1086 it was held by the Bishop of Lincoln and assessed at 1˝ hides. It corresponds to half a knight's fee of the two fees held in Wooburn by Oliver Deyncourt in 1235 (and to the estate known as LYDE alias LUDE MANOR from the later 17th century.
The bishop's tenant in Lede in 1086, as in Wooburn, was Walter [Deyncourt], but by the middle of the 13th century the Deyncourts had subinfeudated Reynold de la Lude and Richard de la Stoke. Their holdings cannot be clearly traced. About 1224 Ada de la Stoke held one-sixth of a knight's fee in Wooburn of Oliver Deyncourt, who ten years later claimed the custody of her son and heir John against Robert Marshal and his wife Lettice. About 1270 John de la Stoke died seised of 2 virgates of land in Wooburn, the custody of which was given to Thomas de Missenden as next of kin to the heir. No later connexion of this family with Wooburn has been found.
In 1086 the tenant of Bishop Remigius in Wooburn was Walter Deyncourt (de Aincurt, d'Eyncourt), a kinsman, who was also connected by marriage with the Conqueror. He held lordships in several counties, principally in Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire and Derbyshire. His heir was his younger son Ralph, founder of Thurgarton Priory in Nottinghamshire. Ralph's son and successor Walter Deyncourt was one of the benefactors of Kirkstead Abbey, Lincolnshire. One of his grants to this abbey is dated 1140, and was given with the consent of his sons Oliver and John. The latter, who succeeded his father, also granted lands to Kirkstead Abbey in 1162. His son Oliver, representative of the family in 1186, died in 1201, when the wardship of his sons and the custody of the lands and the marriage of the heir Oliver were granted to John Bishop of Norwich. Oliver Deyncourt paid £100 relief to the king on the lands of his inheritance in 1217. Hugh Bishop of Lincoln brought suits against him in 1220 and 1221 in respect of his tenure of Wooburn Manor.
The one-third of Wooburn Manor or 10 librates of land retained by the see of Lincoln in 1222 was called BISHOPS WOOBURN. It was held by the rector of Wooburn, William of Thornton, in 1285, and taken into the king's hands during the unsettled times of Edward II, who restored it to the see of Lincoln in 1324. To escape the inconvenience caused by this liability of the temporalities of his see to seizure the diocesan is said to have appropriated Wooburn Rectory about 1330.
The church of ST. PAUL consists of a chancel 29 ft. 6 in. by 14 ft. 6 in., north chapel 30 ft. by 14 ft., nave 52 ft. by 19 ft. 6 in., north aisle 10 ft. wide, south aisle 12 ft. 6 in. wide, and a west tower 14 ft. square. These dimensions are all internal. The earliest portion of the present building is the nave, which dates from about 1180; the chancel seems to have been rebuilt in the 14th century, when the north chapel was added, and the aisles were rebuilt in the 19th century. The west tower was added in 1442, and the whole fabric having become very dilapidated was thoroughly restored internally in 1856–7 and externally in 1868–9. There is said to have been an ancient curiously carved font in the church which had disappeared long before 1870. There is a brass in the chancel to Thomas Swayn, S.T.B., who was prebendary of Aylesbury and chaplain to William Atwater, Bishop of Lincoln, and who died in 1519. It represents a priest in cope and amice and has a Latin inscription. In 1229 15 marks were paid annually from Wooburn Church (which was valued at £10 13s. 4d. in 1291) to the see of Lincoln. The vicarage was ordained in 1337 and further endowed in 1458. The advowson was retained by the Bishops of Lincoln until 1547 and followed the same descent as Bishops Wooburn Manor.Another with no date, but of the 16th century, has the figure of a man in a shroud with a scroll, an inscription in English verse, four shields, and a representation of the Trinity. The third brass in the chancel is to Arthur, the infant son of Philip Lord Wharton, who died in 1641; it consists of a small square plate with the figure of a child on an altar tomb, an inscription, and a lozenge with a shield of arms and a motto. In 1655 the tenth toll dish of corn or grist from a corn-mill in the parish was claimed by prescriptive right by the vicar. The Chantry Commissioners stated in 1548 that certain rents in Wooburn yielded 12d. yearly for uses not known to them, and that an annual rent of unknown amount was paid out of the parsonage in pension to an aged priest since the dissolution of Woburn Abbey (Beds.).
The registers begin in 1653.