Pre-History of Lacey Green

PRE-HISTORY  OF  LACEY GREEN    by  Ian Kelloway (click Ian & Sue Kelloway for more about Ian)

I have been asked to write about the prehistory of Lacey Green, so as in name it did not exist prior to the 1600`s and we are in the Parish of Princes Risborough it is probably best to write about this area.

  So where to start?  Probably Whiteleaf as this is the place of the earliest man-made structure in Buckinghamshire.  A Neolithic burial mound with one very important male buried inside, whose bones have been radiocarbon dated and it was found that he died between 3695 – 3645 BC.

 While I am on the subject of Whiteleaf in extensive test pits and various trenches dug recently across the hill, flint flakes from the Megalithic period were found, so man has been in this area for a very long time.

  Also a Roman votive offering in the form of a bronze alloy leaf was also found, a first for Buckinghamshire which suggests some sort of temple or shrine was once here.

Also in Risborough are the two ancient routes of the Icknield Way.   The Upper Icknield Way which has been incorporated into the Ridgeway Path is thought to be a Neolithic route way although recent excavations whilst constructing the Aston Clinton by-pass could not find any evidence of this route and some experts are suggesting that this route way was a much wider freeway and was not tracked until maybe as late as the late Saxon period.   The Lower Icknield Way is a Roman road, whether it was in existence prior to this is in question.   A very good example of this Roman road continues into the fields at the end of Mill Lane in Chinnor.

Nearer to Lacey Green a flint axe head was found close to Promised Land Farm.  Grim's Ditch thought to be an Iron Age land boundary which can be seen very clearly at the bottom of Kiln Lane and again at the bottom of the village.   Recent excavations in Kiln Lane and in the school grounds and also some geo-physics in the fields at Stocken Farm suggests that it was once joined up but has been lost over time.

There are two Roman villas at Saunderton sitting very close to one another, one thought to be earlier than the other.   Nearby there is a Saxon cemetery.

  The Black Hedge is one of oldest recorded boundaries in England dating back to 903 AD which describes a Saxon estate.   This boundary is the Monks Risborough Ecclesiastical Parish boundary.  From 1894 to 1933 it was also the Monks Risborough civil parish boundary, but the civil parish was incorporated with Princes Risborough in 1933.

Woodway leading up from Princes Risborough to Lacey Green is thought to be a Saxon name meaning “a route up to the woods” so perhaps Lacey Green became a clearing in the woods originally.