Chesham
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Template:Infobox England place with map Chesham is a town in the Chiltern Hills, Buckinghamshire, England. It is the fourth largest town in the county, and is situated in the Chess Valley. Despite once having a thriving set of industries (including beer, boots and watercress) these have declined, with only the boot factory remaining and the main product of the town becoming commuters.
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History and Geography
The first recorded reference to Chesham, or Cestreham, was in the will of Lady Elgiva, an Anglo-Saxon Queen. There is archaeological evidence of a Roman villa downstream at Latimer and the planting of grapevines near the Balks.
Chesham is mentioned in 1012 AD as Cæstæleshamm, which is Anglo-Saxon for "the river-meadow at the pile of stones".
Although recently many people have started to pronounce the town as "Chesh-um", people from different parts of Buckinghamshire, the Chilterns and those who have been in the area for a long time pronounce the town as "Chess-am" or "Chess-um". This traditional pronunciation has become mixed with the influx of new people from various parts of the UK and abroad. Its traditional pronunciation reflects the idea that the town's name is derived from "ham" (town) on the River Chess, although the use of earlier names such as Cæstæleshamm suggests otherwise. Contrary to popular belief, the town is not named after the river; rather, the river (which emanates from a local spring) is named after the town.
The town is located in the Chess Valley, and the nearest towns are Bovingdon, Bellingdon and Amersham. Further afield are High Wycombe and Hemel Hempstead.
The River Chess runs from Waterside and then underneath the town through pipes. It rises from springs near the old town of Chesham, behind the parish church before flowing in a south easterly direction past Waterside and towards Latimer. From there it flows to the north of Chenies and on towards Rickmansworth after which it becomes a tributary of the River Colne. Historically the fertile land around the Chess, and the very clean water of the Chess itself, made it ideal for growing watercress and this industry flourished in Chesham in the Victorian era. Today the Chess is equally well known for trout fishing.
Politics
The recent political history of Chesham is over-shadowed by the local government re-organisation of 1973. During that year a proud independent Chesham Urban District Council was forced to merge with Amersham Rural District Council to create the new Chiltern District Council, which included the Chalfonts. Since then the fourth largest Buckinghamshire town has seen many of its local services drift away (this was predicted at the time by many Chesham people who enjoyed a fierce rivalry with Amersham) to the much smaller town of Amersham. There are no full-time police or ambulance stations in Chesham (although there is a police station it is mostly closed due to lack of funds) and all the main functions of Chiltern District Council are fulfilled in Amersham, where the main local government offices are. Amersham has since then become something of a more middle-upper class area, whereas Chesham has been sliding down into relative poverty.
The housing association which is responsible for council housing in the area, Chiltern Hundreds Housing Association (part of Paradigm Housing) now build almost all of their houses in Chesham and their under-publicised (almost secret) council house buy-back scheme involves buying back private houses almost exclusively in Chesham. At the same time very little new social housing is being built (or bought-back) in Amersham and the Chalfonts, increasing the relative economic divide between Chesham and the surrounding towns.
A further blow to Chesham in terms of removing it from the political landscape, has been the moving of the editorial team and journalists of the local Chesham newspaper (the Bucks Examiner [1]) away from the town (the advertising team remain in Chesham). Very little "new" news relating to Chesham now appears in the newspaper and it has lost all of its once highly regarded local edge - few, if any of the paper's journalists live in the town which means that the paper's coverage of important local events often seem to miss the mark. This is in stark contrast to 20 years ago when the paper was kept well-informed by a large local staff (the paper was also printed in the town).
Demographics
Chesham has a long history of religious diversity, such as the persecuted Lollards of the 15th century and Thomas Harding, martyred on White Hill, near Dungrove Farm, in 1532. The 18th and 19th centuries saw the rapid growth of non-conformists especially Baptists, and the later 20th century saw the establishment of a sizable Muslim community. The first proper mosque in the town was completed in 2005. Chesham still has 3 Baptist Churches (Broadway Baptist, Trinity Baptist and Newtown Baptist) and a very large number of churches overall, including a Quaker meeting house.
Business, Industry and Transport
In the 19th century Chesham was known for its "four B's"; boots, brushes, beer and Baptists. All these industries declined and the many people now commute to London for work, something made possible by the London Underground linkup. Due to this, it is sometimes hard in Chesham to find work outside of the retail sector, and subsequently hard due to to demand to find work within it.
Transport
Road
Town centre
Image:CheshamTrafficBlackspots.PNG Chesham's High Street was pedestrianised in 1990 - the benefits to the High Street have been debated ever since. However, the design of the road traffic scheme to allow the pedestrianisation was very poor with St. Mary's Way, now the main thoroughfare around the town centre, originally (and unbelievably) just two lanes wide. The designers (fortunately for them, and the town) were just able to squeeze in an extra two lanes by drastically narrowing the new lanes along St.Mary's Way. This occurred after much local controversy and after a week of traffic chaos.
However, the town has had to live with a very poorly designed road layout ever since. Traffic lanes along St. Mary's Way are now far too narrow (with buses barely able to fit in lanes) and congestion is made much worse by the need for traffic exiting Bellingdon Road to "double-back" along an already congested road system. Great Missenden bound traffic is also forced to "double-back" to make a right turn into Church Street. Many people at the time believed that both roads needed roundabouts to end the need for this "doubling-back" and so ease traffic flow through Chesham.
Access to almost all of Chesham's car parks is via one roundabout (at the bottom of Chartridge lane), causing a traffic "pinch point" that would be alleviated by the addition of the two proposed roundabouts at the end of Bellingdon Road and Church Street.
The addition of two extra, much needed roundabouts would make a long awaited addition to Chesham's road layout which sees long tail-backs especially at School-out time. Arguably, pedestrianisation robbed the high street of through traffic and at the same time created a notorious local traffic black-spot contributing to the economic decline of Chesham, relative to neighbouring towns.
Other areas
Some of the roads around Pond Park, typically one of the most neglected areas of the town, are in bad shape. At the end of Milton Road the road changes to become mostly a gravel path riddled with potholes which have been filled in with pieces of brick.
Sunnyside Road was becoming a major traffic pinch point, but is now completely one way which has helped considerably. Traffic calming measures have been called for around Pond Park, with little success.
The main thoroughfare in and out of town is the large road towards Amersham through Chesham Bois, which inevitably gets clogged with buses and private cars in the mornings.
Rail
Image:Chesham Tube Station.jpg The town has a tube station near the town centre, which is the last station on the spur off the Metropolitan Line, of the London Underground. The station would have linked to the LNWR, which could possibly have led to growth in the area, but the idea was abandoned as the Metropolitan Line reached Amersham. There were some sizable goods yards beyond the station, which were closed and now function as Waitrose's car park (except for one portion, which still functions as a coal merchants). Also, some pieces of what appears to be concrete embankment are visible along Victoria Road (which could not have existed until the early 1950s or so, as the required land was owned by the Metropolitan Railway/London Underground).
Up until recently, the station had two platforms; a short bay platform and a longer main platform (the one currently in use now). This arrangement allowed for far more frequent running of trains, as one train could wait at Chesham while the other went to Chalfont and Latimer (or possibly onwards to London). However, the bay platform closed (subsequently becoming an award winning garden, which has now fallen into disrepair after repeated vandalism), and now trains arrive every half an hour.
Image:CheshamTubeMap.PNG To reach the station, most passengers need to change trains at Chalfont and Latimer and catch a shuttle train. At peak times, some trains run directly from London to Chesham and back again, made possible by switching work at Chalfont.
The nearest National Rail station is in Amersham, although the LU line connects directly to Chalfont And Latimer station, which is also an NR station.
Bus
Arriva run several services running either through or to the town.
- The 362 (formerly 362 and 372) runs every half an hour and runs between High Wycombe and the Pond Park district.
- The 52 runs between Hemel Hempstead and Amersham, passing through (and sometimes terminating at) Chesham.
- The 353 runs from Berkhamsted to Slough, and passes through Chesham.
Carousel Buses have also started operating services in the town, some of them under contract from Bucks County Council:
- The 4 runs the same route as the 362.
- The 336 runs between Chesham and Watford.
Arriva was for a time practically the only bus company operating in the area. Most, if not all, major routes were under their control, and there were (and still are) almost constant complaints about the level of service. Carousel only started operating in 2004/5, but already have launched a route to directly compete with Arriva's 362, taken over the running of the 336 (formerly an Arriva route subsidised by Buckinghamshire County Council) and the 373 (previously operated by Red Rose).
The bus stops in the town are sometimes confusing to those not used to taking buses there. The stop outside the Brown Sugar cafe takes buses going southbound (towards Wycombe and Amersham) and the stop on the other side of the square takes buses going northbound (towards Pond Park, Hemel Hempstead and Berkhamsted). A frequent, and somewhat amusing (to those watching, anyway) sight is passengers waiting at the wrong stop running frantically towards their departing bus, hurling profanities at it.
Air
The Bovingdon stack lies above the town, and Luton airport is roughly 15 miles away.
Retail
The high street has seen some decline in recent years, mirroring the decline of the "traditional" high street across the UK. There are however two supermarkets in the town - a Waitrose which has remained practically unchanged since its opening (in 1989, when the shop moved from its old high street premises) except for a change in signage and a rapidly improving Sainsbury's - a Boots and a number of other national chains and independent retailers. The Sainsbury's is relatively new; it was knocked down and rebuilt in the late 1990s, a plan which caused much controversy; it required also demolishing the old Elgiva theatre and at first demolishing the library (this did not happen; if the plans carried on as intended, the library would be located above the supermarket). Sainsbury paid for the new Elgiva Hall and the new Chesham Town Council offices as part of a "planning gain" deal with the local council; Both opened in 1998.
Some large stores have closed including Iceland (now a discount store called Circle 7 which has something of an ambivalent reputation within the town) and McDonalds, which closed after apparently being unsustainable (despite the restaurant being close to full at times). WH Smith once had a store in the town, which set up shop just before Christmas and left just after. This led many in the town to suspect a cynical grab and run on the part of the chain which did nothing except hurt local businesses. Currently there are three bookshops in the town, the newest being a chain of Ottakar's and the others being independent. The McDonald's in the town which was open for more than a decade closed in March 2006, and is as of writing boarded up and vacant. As it is, for everything except food most people travel to the towns of High Wycombe, Amersham and Hemel Hempstead in case they need to buy anything; campaigns to attract major chain stores have largely failed due to this factor. Even food shopping is sometimes taken to the large Tesco store in Amersham. The town centre attracts some derision from locals for having a large number of charity shops and antique shops.
There is a market in the town on some weekdays. The high street is, whether the market is on or not, closed to motor traffic except for deliveries (see the Road section). The town also has a large number of pubs. The main night club in the town, Stage 2 (known colloquially as "Stages") has closed and is being redeveloped into town centre flats.
Major chains in town
- Bakers Oven
- Barclays
- Boots
- Caffe Nero
- Carphone Warehouse
- Choices Video
- Costcutter (in Pond Park)
- HSBC
- Lloyds TSB
- Mackay's
- NatWest
- Ottakar's
- Sainsbury's
- Unwins (in Pond Park)
- Waitrose [2]
Other shops
- Track Records, a Chain With No Name affiliated record store (unrelated to The Who's record label of the same name)
- Circle 7, a discount store which replaced an Iceland supermarket
- Christmas Tree Farm chesham, a large grower and retailer of Christmas Trees.
- Harvey John's, a toy shop
- Carvel Bakery, which occupies a large signed building behind the shop front
- Chittenden's, a long-standing electrical retailer
- The Drawing Room, a cafe and erotic and figurative art gallery.
Local areas
These designations are mostly informal, if anything, and rarely used officially. Further away from the station towards Newtown, the land usage gets progressively more rural and the atmosphere quieter, with large amounts of farmland just outside the town.
Pond Park
Image:CheshamPondParkView.jpg One "district" of the town is Pond Park, from which the photo on the right was taken. This an area built on the hills to the north of the town starting in 1929, which tends to be more peaceful than the urban parts of the town which are in the valley. There is also the Greenway, a miniature high street of sorts, with a post office, convenience store, newsagents, off license and a fast food outlet. A nursery school which was previously in this area has been demolished to make way for flats, after merging with the William Durrant Secondary School across the road from it to form Little Springs Primary School in September 2002. There were calls for the former nursery school land to be made into a community centre, but these were rejected.
It has been reported [3] that Pond Park is the poorest council estate in the county, and recently lost out on a £1.5million government grant to improve the area. More than a quarter of households are on state benefits and just under 10% of potential earners are on income support. The area is mostly made up of housing association properties, and some of these are slated for redevelopment in a plan which may not be put into action for years to come. Also in Pond Park is Tom Scott House, a fairly large housing association hostel for those awaiting housing placements which also has a baby clinic on the premises (infant mortality in the area is above the Buckinghamshire average at almost 10 deaths per 1,000 babies under 1 year old). There is some consternation amongst locals that (somewhat in line with Chesham as a whole) Pond Park is getting neither the attention nor funding that it desperately needs; as of now crime is going up and roads are in bad condition, with one stretch at the end of Milton Road being basically gravel, with potholes filled with broken bricks. Campaigns for traffic calming measures have also failed to attract much attention.
Pond Park also has a number of recreation grounds, some of which are in states of disrepair and frequently littered.
Waterside
Waterside was built around the banks of the River Chess to the south, and consists of a mixture of old, 1800s era houses and more modern council properties. The Metropolitan Line link runs through this area. Local amenities include a post office, fried chicken shop and a swimming pool/fitness centre. There is also a large sports ground known as the Moor in the area.
Newtown
Newtown, which was built with the coming of the railway, consists of late 1800s era houses built for railway staff and commuters. The lines between Newtown and Pond Park are fairly blurred; it is generally assumed that everything beyond Townsend Road in the valley is Newtown, while everything past that point on the hills is Pond Park.
Education
First schools
Junior schools
- Brushwood
- Thomas Harding Junior School
- Named after the famous martyr
Secondary schools
Further education
Amersham & Wycombe College has a campus in the town, with the other nearest campus being in Amersham.
Recreation
Opposite the town centre is Lowndes Park, a large park with playgrounds and an open air swimming pool (this has not been in use for some time, and is covered with weeds and vines). There is also a large pond in the park, known as Skottowe's Pond.
The Elgiva theater is independent, and tends to show films some months after their original release date, along with hosting conventions and showing plays.
There are two swimming pools, in addition to the disused one mentioned above; an open air pool in Waterside, and a roofed pool (and leisure centre) next to Chesham High School on the edge of the valley.
A common criticism of the town is that there is very little for younger people and teenagers to do, leading to them hanging around the streets at night and causing trouble. Even in the relatively peaceful Pond Park, gangs of youths loiter and tend to amuse themselves by either putting swings out of use or (at the other extreme) lighting fires and setting off fireworks.
