Until at least the time of the Domesday Survey in 1086 there were 18 hundreds in Buckinghamshire.

Even before this time these individual hundreds had become possessions of the Crown and were nominally stewarded as a royal bailiwick.

The hundreds lost their collective 'Chilterns' title having become separately leased though retaining their individual administrative status as Buckinghamshire hundreds.

Meanwhile, appointment to the role of Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds persisted as a procedural device to enable resignation from the House of Commons.

Burnham hundred comprised the following ancient parishes and hamlets, (formerly medieval vills):[4]