Amersham

Another town with a split personality. Top Amersham is a thriving commercial centre; Old Amersham is a popular tourist spot with a wide sweeping High Street, half-timbered buildings and picturesque period cottages. Set beside the River Misbourne, the Old Town boasts many fine old buildings, including Sir William Drake’s Market Hall of 1682 and the Church of St Mary with some fine stained glass and monuments to the Drake family. The Old Town is well known for its shopping – there’s a wide selection of antique and craft shops, designer boutiques, and an impressive range of restaurants, snack bars and coaching inns.

The Romans were farming around Amersham in the 3rd and 4th centuries, the Saxons called it Agmodesham and to the Normans it was Elmondesham. So the town has plenty of history, much of which is told in the Amersham Museum, which occupies a Tudor timber-framed building, Hall House, which is
more than 500 years old. In 2009 the museum acquired a long-case clock made by Joseph Rogers of Amersham.

The town was an important staging post in coaching days, and The Crown Hotel, one of many coaching inns here, was featured in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral. Close to the town is Gore Hill, the site of a battle between the Danes and the Saxons in AD921. It is recorded that in 1666 the Great Fire of London could be seen raging from the hill.