Hartwell, Buckinghamshire

Description
Hartwell, a parish in Bucks, 2 1/2 miles SW from Aylesbury, which is the nearest railway station. It includes all but one cottage of the hamlet of Sedrup, and its post town and telegraph office is Aylesbury; money order office, Stone. Acreage, 918; population, 118. The manor belonged to the De Hertwells, the Lutons, the Stokeses, the Singletons, and the Hampdens, and passed in the 14th century to the Lees. The lord of the manor is sole landowner. Hartwell House is an old edifice, considerably modernized; was the residence in 1810-14 of Louis XVIII. and his family; usually, with the out-buildings, accommodated about 140 persons during the time of Louis's residence; is hid from the view of persons on the high road by a screen of superb trees; contains many memorials of Louis's family, and of distinguished persons who visited them; and contains also a museum, a fine geological collection, a large quantity of manuscripts, and some interesting pictures. A history of it by Admiral Smyth fills two large 4to vols., entitled " 1/2des Hartwellianse." The geology of the parish and its neighbourhood is very interesting. There are also several springs, and over one of them is an Egyptian temple, erected after a design by Bonomi, with inscriptions by Mr Birch of the British Museum. The living is a rectory, now united with the vicarage of the adjoining parish of Stone by an Order in Council, in 1892, and is in the diocese of Oxford. The church was built in 1756, is octagonal, on the model of the chapter-house at York, has two square towers, and bears in the east window the arms of the Hampdens, the Lees, and the Harcourts. The only charities are the interest of £117, the value of plate left by Louis XVIII., and given to the parish, and the interest of £112 13s. 4d. left by Mrs. Cecilia Lee.