Wigginton, Hertfordshire
Encyclopedia
Wigginton is a large village and civil parish
Civil parish
In England, a civil parish is a territorial designation and, where they are found, the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties...

 running north-south and perched at 730 ft (222.5 m) on the edge of the Chiltern Hills
Chiltern Hills
The Chiltern Hills form a chalk escarpment in South East England. They are known locally as "the Chilterns". A large portion of the hills was designated officially as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in 1965.-Location:...

 in the county of Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...

 and aside the border with Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....

. The nearest towns are Tring
Tring
Tring is a small market town and also a civil parish in the Chiltern Hills in Hertfordshire, England. Situated north-west of London and linked to London by the old Roman road of Akeman Street, by the modern A41, by the Grand Union Canal and by rail lines to Euston Station, Tring is now largely a...

 in Hertfordshire (1.5m NW) and across the other side of the A41
A41 road
The A41 is a formerly-major trunk road in England that links London and Birkenhead, although it has now largely been superseded by motorways. It passes through or near various towns and cities including Watford, Hemel Hempstead, Aylesbury, Solihull, Birmingham, West Bromwich, Wolverhampton,...

, Chesham
Chesham
Chesham is a market town in the Chiltern Hills, Buckinghamshire, England. It is located 11 miles south-east of the county town of Aylesbury. Chesham is also a civil parish designated a town council within Chiltern district. It is situated in the Chess Valley and surrounded by farmland, as well as...

 (6m S) and Wendover
Wendover
Wendover is a market town that sits at the foot of the Chiltern Hills in Buckinghamshire, England. It is also a civil parish within Aylesbury Vale district...

 (6m W), both in Buckinghamshire.
In the 11th century, Wigginton was under the control of a half-brother of William I
William I of England
William I , also known as William the Conqueror , was the first Norman King of England from Christmas 1066 until his death. He was also Duke of Normandy from 3 July 1035 until his death, under the name William II...

, Robert, Count of Mortain
Robert, Count of Mortain
Robert, Count of Mortain, 1st Earl of Cornwall was a Norman nobleman and the half-brother of William I of England. Robert was the son of Herluin de Conteville and Herleva of Falaise and was full brother to Odo of Bayeux. The exact year of Robert's birth is unknown Robert, Count of Mortain, 1st...

. However, in 1086 the Domesday Book
Domesday Book
Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...

 indicates that Wigginton had not been gifted to him but was probably acquired by force by Robert from two adjacent estates close to Tring one of which had previously been in the hands of Edith of Wessex
Edith of Wessex
Edith of Wessex married King Edward the Confessor of England on 23 January 1045. Unlike most wives of kings of England in the tenth and eleventh centuries, she was crowned queen, but the marriage produced no children...

. During the 13th century Wigginton formed part of the estate at Little Gaddesden
Little Gaddesden
Little Gaddesden is a village and civil parish in the English county of Hertfordshire three miles north of Berkhamsted. As well as Little Gaddesden village , the parish contains the settlements of Ashridge , Hudnall , and part of Ringshall .Part of the parish was formerly in Buckinghamshire...

 passing first to the de Broc family and then, through marriage to the de Lucys. After the death of Sir William Lucy in 1466 it was in the ownership of the Corbets for over 130 years. The manor was then the subject of successive legal challenges fought out in the Court of Chancery
Court of Chancery
The Court of Chancery was a court of equity in England and Wales that followed a set of loose rules to avoid the slow pace of change and possible harshness of the common law. The Chancery had jurisdiction over all matters of equity, including trusts, land law, the administration of the estates of...

 until it came into the possession of Sir Richard Anderson of the manor of Pendley during the 1650s. Elizabeth Spencer (nee Anderson) inherited Wigginton and became the third wife of Simon Harcourt, 1st Viscount Harcourt
Simon Harcourt, 1st Viscount Harcourt
Simon Harcourt, 1st Viscount Harcourt, of Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire, PC was Queen Anne's Lord Chancellor of Great Britain. He was her solicitor-general and her commissioner for arranging the union with Scotland...

 1703. The manor remained in the Harcourt family until the 1860s. Colonel Charles Harcourt
Charles Harcourt
Charles Harcourt was a British actor.Harcourt was born in June 1838. After obtaining some experience by acting with amateurs, he made his first public appearance at St...

 had died in 1831 leaving the manor to his three daughters, Sarah, Elizabeth and Alice who jointly sold it to Rev. James Williams in 1868.

Adjacent to the main village is the settlement of Wigginton Bottom where a number of farmworkers cottages were built.

The Champneys
Champneys
Champneys is the brand name of a destination spa group in the United Kingdom. Champneys Health Resorts Group own four spa resorts and has become one of the largest destination spa operators in the world...

 (also recorded as Champneys and Forsters) estate was originally a separate manor associated with Tring and was recorded in the Court Rolls of 1514. It was owned by successive landowning families in the Wigginton and surrounding area between the 14th and 19th centuries, although for a short period around 1535 it is recorded as owned by the then Archbishop of Canterbury
Archbishop of Canterbury
The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. In his role as head of the Anglican Communion, the archbishop leads the third largest group...

 one Thomas Cranmer
Thomas Cranmer
Thomas Cranmer was a leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and, for a short time, Mary I. He helped build a favourable case for Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon which resulted in the separation of the English Church from...

. In 1902 Champneys was sold to Lady Rothschild by the Rev. Arthur Sutton Valpy
Arthur Sutton Valpy
Arthur Sutton Valpy was a canon of Winchester Cathedral. He was a descendant of Richard Valpy and his wife Emily Anne Sutton. He was born 28 March 1849 and died 15 June 1909.-Education:...

, a descendant of Richard Valpy who had inherited it in 1871. He replaced the original building by the current house in 1874 which stood in extensive grounds of around 200 acre (0.809372 km²) which his late wife Emily Anne Sutton had acquired, prior to their marriage, largely from the vicars of Tring. It is now known as a health spa.

St Bartholomews Church was first recorded in 1217 and is thought to have had connections with the Knights Hospitalers. Much of the main building dates from the 15th century and major restoration was undertaken in 1881. Today there is a C of E Primary School of the same name. Wigginton Common was enclosed in 1854 and was subsequently incorporated into the Tring Park Estate
Tring Park
Tring Park is a large country house near Tring, Hertfordshire.The Manor of Tring is first mentioned in the Domesday Book where it is referred to as "Treunge" and was owned by Eustace III, Count of Boulogne, a countryman of William the Conqueror...

 owned at the time by the Rothschild Family
Rothschild family
The Rothschild family , known as The House of Rothschild, or more simply as the Rothschilds, is a Jewish-German family that established European banking and finance houses starting in the late 18th century...

. Although there is evidence of Nonconformist worship during the 18th century a Baptist
Baptist
Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...

chapel was only opened in the village in 1904.

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