Darvills Hill

Darvills Hill is a small hamlet. Just a cluster of houses and and a farm to begin with. The cottages at Turnip End also give their address as Darvills Hill in early documents.

The following letter published in Hallmark in 1972 was written by Frances E Wallace of 'Glenmore' Darvills Hill :-

Dear sir,

I thought that some of your readers might be interested n a fragment of carved stone which I found in our garden at Darvills Hill, and indeed in some of the history of our district as given to me by an archaeologist. His report reads as follows :-

I have been looking into the place name, folk lore and mythical connections with the carved stone found at Darvills Hill.

Firstly this is the main entrance to the vast rectangular earthworks about Great Hampden. The design of the stone looks as if it of Dark Age or early medieval origin and at that time the three Buckinghamshire Chiltern Hundreds of Desborough, Burnham and Stoke were still in fact, if not officially, ruled by the three families of the Hampdens, Penns and Bulstrodes, descendants of the British Chiefs.

Darvilles Hill is surrounded by Grims Ditches. Darville derives from the Cornish Deverel, meaning to build or raise up. The Hill was in fact raised up to form the defences called Grims Dykes, which derive from Grym Deges, i.e. "the enclosure of power". Nearby is Turnip-end, derived from Yh Dynow-Pen, i.e. "within the chief earthworks (or hill fort)", which it is.

On the stone the crosses are of the Celtic type, of wich pre christian examples have bee found in Corwall and elsewhere.