Chalfont St Giles

An English Village Worth Visiting Whilst on your visit to Milton's Cottage, why not stop off in the Village centre, enjoy seeing a real English Village, so often missed by tourists rushing from one historic site to another. Start at the River Misbourne, (often dried up in the summer months), see the Sarcens Stone which was discovered not many years ago under the road bridge, and was possibly part of a Roman road. Imagine Cromwell's soldiers camped in Silsden meadow, using the Church tower for target practice. See the Alms houses built by Bishop Hare, the bakehouse where the Christmas turkeys of the village were once baked, together with local cherry pies.

In the late eighteenth century, Admiral Sir Hugh Palliser was Lord of the Manor and Treasurer of the Navy. When he heard of the death of his great friend Captain Cook the discoverer of Australia, he built a memorial to him in the grounds of The Vache. Visit the Church, which is of Norman origin, with amongst other things, its medieval wall paintings, its double piscina, its tombs of the Lords of the Manor, its hatchments, its Corbel Stones telling the story of St Giles, the Village's patron saint, and its ancient pews.

Take tea in the tea rooms on the Green, or have a drink in one of the Village's many public houses. And on your way to Milton's Cottage, note Stonewells Farm, the oldest inhabited building in the village, built in the early years of the Reign of Elizabeth I. Pass by the old Rectory, which is depicted in a 1774 picture in Milton's Cottage.

Designed and maintained by Edward Neville