[1] The ecclesiastical parish of Monks Risborough includes the hamlets of Meadle, Owlswick, Askett, Cadsden and Whiteleaf.

It is almost 6 miles (9.7 km) in length, from Owlswick in the north to Monkton Farm on the outskirts of Speen in the south; but it is only one and a quarter miles wide at the widest part (at Meadle) and barely four hundred yards at the narrowest parts (at Green Hailey and in Monkton Wood).

At the foot of the scarp, where there are springs, is the village of Monks Risborough, with the church, and also Askett and Cadsden, nearer to Aylesbury on either side of the main road.

An estate with boundaries corresponding closely to the present ecclesiastical parish of Monks Risborough was granted to some unknown person by the King of Mercia in the 8th or 9th century.

In that year marauders from Scandinavia ravaged Kent and threatened to burn down Canterbury Cathedral unless they were bought off.

Money was sent, the cathedral was saved and East Risborough was transferred to Aescwig in the presence of the King and Witan, who at the same time freed the estate from all secular burdens except the obligation for military service and for contributions to bridges and fortresses.

At a date between 994 and 1002 Aescwig conveyed the estate back to Canterbury, where Aelfric was now Archbishop after the death of Sigeric.

Aelfric in turn died in 1005 and by his will he left his interest in East Risborough to Christ Church Priory, Canterbury.

[6] At the time of the Domesday survey in 1086 the tenant-in-chief of the manor was Archbishop Lanfranc, a stern and very capable man, rivalling the King himself in statesmanship,[7] who had been appointed to the see of Canterbury in 1070 after the Conquest.

[12] On 1 April 1934 the parish was abolished and merged with Princes Risborough, part also went to form Longwick cum Ilmer and Great and Little Hampden.

[13] In 1535, immediately before the dissolution of the monasteries, King Henry VIII, acting by Thomas Cromwell, ordered a valuation to be made of all the ecclesiastical property in England.

The manor of Monks Risborough was included in this valuation under the heading "Properties of the Church of Christ at Canterbury".

It was shown separately as part of the Deanery of Risborough within the Diocese of Lincoln but within the exempt jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Canterbury and worth £30 a year.

[15] Christ Church Priory was finally dissolved in 1539 and the manor of Monks Risborough was put up for sale by the Royal Commissioners in 1541.

Royal assent was granted on 29 May 1830 and the first meeting of the three commissioners appointed to investigate the matter and make the Award was held in the Cross Keys Inn at Princes Risborough on 17 June 1830.

A number of fields were allotted to the rector in lieu of tithe, which then ceased to be payable (except in respect of woodlands).

The fields are now vested in the Trustees of Monks Risborough Parochial Charities and they have a wider discretion as to the charitable purposes for which the income can be applied.

A field in a district then called Rumborough was allotted to be used for recreation; this is now the Monks Risborough cricket pitch.

[19] On Whiteleaf Hill, which extends above the hamlet of Whiteleaf to the top of the scarp at 813 ft (248 m), is an oval Neolithic barrow (National Grid SP 822040), which was first excavated by Sir Lindsay Scott between 1934 and 1939, when the work was interrupted by the Second World War and the excavator died before he had had an opportunity to publish more than interim notes on his findings.

[20] The site was re-excavated from 2002 to 2006 by Oxford Archaeology (assisted by the Princes Risborough Countryside Group) and their report was published in 2007.

[21] There was a single burial within the barrow, a middle aged man between 5'6" and 5'9" in height, with a long and narrow skull (a type found in the Neolithic period), badly worn teeth and arthritic joints.

[23] After the re-excavation the soil was replaced, following Sir Lindsay Scott's plans and drawings, so that the appearance of the barrow now corresponds with that existing at the start of excavations in 1934.

[24] The status of the individual and the actual nature of the events are unknown, but he must have been a man of significance in local society.

Just to the south of the oval barrow, crossing the path leading to the car park, another earthwork was investigated and was found to be a cross-ridge dyke about 140 m long across the southern end of the narrowest part of the ridge.

It here consisted of two separate tracks, the Upper Icknield Way and the Lower Icknield Way, supposedly for winter and summer use respectively, though Christopher Taylor suggests that the upper route follows the prehistoric track, while the lower route was a Roman road which followed the same general line but on flat land more suitable for Roman methods of road construction.

The present building, which replaced an earlier church, dates mainly from the 14th and 15th centuries, restored and in part renewed by G.E.

It is built of flint and has a chancel, nave with two aisles, north transept and a square tower at the west end.

Eggleton's Bakery (one of its set-ups was situated in Burton Lane) was a four-generation family business that baked the streets of Risborough since the early-nineteenth century.

The list of baking cited in the book 'The Voices of Princes Risborough' stated the Bakery would make: two-dozen doughnuts, fifteen-dozen currant buns, twenty-five dozen sausage rolls, seventy lardy cakes and two thousand loaves of bread.

Eggleton's products continued to be baked and sold in the general store or delivered from Burton Lane until 1961 when they moved to Bell Street in Princes Risborough but due to the rising competition of supermarkets they closed the business in 1965.