Beaconsfield, a small town and a parish in Bucks. The town stands on a high plateau, 3 miles NE of Wooburn-Green station on the G.W.R., and 5 3/4 S by W of Amersham. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office, and is a seat of petty sessions. It is governed by a local board of nine members, formed in 1850 under the Public Health Act of 1848. It consists of four streets, commonly called ends, which meet at the centre in a spacious market-place. The church, which is in the Perpendicular style, is built of flint and squared stones; comprises nave, chancel, and side aisles, with a western tower ; belonged to an Augustinian monastery founded at Burnham in 1165 by Richard, Earl of Cornwall; and contains the remains of Edmund Burke, whose seat, afterwards destroyed by fire, was in the parish; and a marble monument to the poet Waller, who owned the manor, is in the churchyard. The church was restored in 1869, and the south porch erected in 1886. There are also Congregational and Primitive Methodist chapels. A weekly market was formerly held here. This is now extinct, but fairs are held on 13 Feb. and 10 May. The parish includes also part of Coleshill hamlet. Acreage, 4504; population, 1773. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Oxford; net value, £300 with residence. Patron, Magdalen College, Oxford. Beaconsfield gave the title of Viscountess (1868) to Mary Anne, wife of the Right Hon. Benjamin Disraeli, and of Earl (1876) to that illustrious statesman himself, who was also Viscount Hughenden. By his death, 19 April, 1881, both titles became extinct. Hall Barn, the ancient seat of the Wallers, now belonging to the Lawson family, Witton Park, the seat of the Dupre family, and Butler's Court, of the Grenfell family, are in the neighbourhood.
