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The village name is Anglo Saxon in origin and means 'woodland clearing'. In the Domesday Book of 1086 it was recorded as Lee and was, following the Norman Conquest, granted by William I to Odo, Bishop of Bayeux. It also had associations with the Earl of Leicester who, in the early part of the 12th century, charged Ralph de Halton to oversee the lands. At the end of that century the Turville family took over this role. Soon after this Robert, Earl of Leicester granted the land to Missenden Abbey. After the dissolution of the abbey The Lee stayed in the possession of the Crown until 1547 when Edward VI granted a lease on the estate to John Russell, 1st Earl of Bedford
The events that led to Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford initially leasing the lands at The Lee to William Plaistowe in 1635 and later selling the land to the Plaistowe family are obscure; either they were mortgaged to pay off debts or were sequestrated as a consequence of the Russells' involvement on the "wrong" side of the English Civil War.
In 1900, Arthur Lasenby Liberty of Liberty’s of Regent Street bought the manor from John Plaistowe and built a new manor house on the outskirts of the village. The Liberty family continue to reside at The Lee.
The parish church in the village, St John the Baptist, is unusual in that it consists of two buildings: the ancient chapel of ease built in the 12th century which includes a window depicting Oliver Cromwell and John Hampden as 'champions of liberty', and the more modern Victorian construction that was built of red brick in 1867.
Both sit within an oval churchyard, common in places of importance in the pre-Roman period.
The cache can be found at N51 43.abc W00 41.cde
All headstones can be seen from the path and are clearly legible. Find the grave in memory of Sir Robert Barlow 1st September 1ac1 - b0th September 1cd6
Find the grave of Private R Rodwell of the Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry , before his name is a number 2ed0b
The cache is a short walk away.
Congratulations to smokeypugs on FTF
“If anybody would like to expand to this series please do, I would just ask that you could let Sadexploration know first at churchmicro@gmail.com so he can keep track of the Church numbers and names to avoid duplication.
There is also a Church Micro Stats & Information page found via the Bookmark list”