AMERSHAM  , a

market town in the Wycombe parliamentary division of Buckinghamshire, England, 24 M . W.N.W.-of London by the Metropolitan railway . Pop . (1901) 2674 . It is pleasantly situated in the narrow valley of the Misbourne stream, which is flanked by the well-wooded slopes of the Chiltern Hills . The church of St Mary is almost entirely Perpendicular, and has a beautiful south porch, brasses of the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries and numerous monuments, several of which, in a chantry, commemorate members of the family of Drake, lords of the manor . The town hall was built by Sir William Drake in 1642 . At Coleshill, near Amersham, Edmund Waller the poet was born in 1606; he sat in parliament for the former borough of Amersham . The town has flour mills and breweries, and some straw-plaiting and lace-making are carried on in the vicinity . The district is one of the most beautiful near London; the village of Chenies, overlooking the valley of the Chess, is especially picturesque . Amersham (Elmodesham, Agmondesham, fagmondesham, Aumundesham, Homersham) at the time of the Domesday Survey was divided into no less than six holdings . The manor, or chief of them, was held by Geoffrey de Mandeville ..

At the time of

Edward the Confessor it was held by Queen Edith . The manor afterwards descended to the families of Fitz Piers, Bohun and Strafford, and was granted by Henry VIII. to Sir John Russell, ancestor of the earls of Bedford . In 1638 Francis;, earl of Bedford, conveyed it to William Drake, by whose descendants it is still held . The north chapel in the church of St Michael, Chenies, has been the burial-place of the Russell family since its erection in 1556, and contains a number of fine memorials, notably that of Anne, countess of Bedford (d . 1558), who founded the chapel . Amersham was formerly a parliamentary borough by prescription, and returned two members in 1300, 1306, 1307 and 1309 . In 1623 this privilege was restored, and was only annulled by the Reform Bill of 1832 .. The annual fair, in September, is held under a charter secured by Geoffrey Fitz Peter, earl of Essex, in 1200, that on Whit Monday under a charter of 1614, secured by Edward, earl of Bedford, which transferred the Friday market, also granted under the earlier charter, to Tuesday .