Penn, Buckinghamshire

Penn is a village and civil parish in the Chiltern district in Buckinghamshire, England, about 3mi north-west of Beaconsfield and 4mi east of High Wycombe. The parish, containing Penn village and the hamlets of Beacon Hill, Penn Street, Knotty Green and Forty Green, plus Winchmore Hill, covers 3,991 acres (1615 ha).HistoryThe name is Brythonic and comparable with the modern Welsh topynym Pen. This may be translated as hill top or end; the village stands on a well-defined promontory of the Chiltern Hills. From the tower of the Holy Trinity Church in the village, it is supposedly possible to see into eight other counties. There is also a beacon hill with a signal post on it within the village boundary.Segraves Manor, the principal manor in Penn, belonged to the Penn family. Sybil Penn, wife of David, was dry nurse and foster mother to King Edward VI and Lady of the Bed Chamber to his sister, Queen Elizabeth I. William Penn (after whose father, Admiral Sir William Penn, Pennsylvania is named) erroneously believed himself to be a descendant of this family. However, in 1735 the manor passed from the unmarried Roger Penn to his only heir and sister, who was married to Lord Curzon. Penbury Grove House was built in 1902 by the American engineer, Horace Field Parshall, to be a replica of Pennsbury Manor, William Penn’s house in Pennsylvania.