---

 

 

 

High Wycombe Leasing

Did You Know?

The final film in Simon Pegg and Nick Frost’s hilarious Cornetto Trilogy, given that name because each film features Cornetto ice-creams, has scenes filmed in High Wycombe. The World’s End sees five friends meet up for a pub crawl that they last did twenty years ago only to find themselves being the last hope to save the planet as we know it. When the friends first meet and Simon Pegg's character picks them up they are at High Wycombe station.

High Wycombe’s most famous industry is its chair manufacturing which really took off in the 19th century - it is thought that around 4,700 chairs were made every day in High Wycombe in 1875. During a visit by Queen Victoria to the town in 1877 the council organised for chairs to be crafted into an arch over the High Street with “Long live the Queen” printed boldly on them.

High Wycombe has been home to a number of high-profile celebrities over the years. US TV host and actor James Corden grew up on the outskirts of High Wycombe in Hazlemere while Leigh-Anne Pinnock, who is a member of the girl band Little Mix is from the town. Actress Sally Phillips, who has starred in Bridget Jones and I’m Alan Partidge, attended Wycombe Abbey Girls School while actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who played the lead in Kick Ass.

High Wycombe’s first public library was opened in 1875 after the philanthropist James Olliff Griffits acquired the old school in Church Street and created a library - he even paid for most of it himself. However, it was not popular with the wealthy men of the town as they wanted working class men to be drinking beer in their pubs rather than educating themselves.

While Hovis did not start its life in High Wycombe, it was actually founded in Staffordshire, its head office is now in the town. The company was founded over 130 years ago and sells some of Britain’s most well-known products to families in Bucks and across the country.

High Wycombe most famous industry, furniture making (particularly chairs) took hold in the19th century with furniture factories setting up across the town. The landscape around the town is a patchwork of fields dotted with lush Chiltern beechwoods which provided home and work to the bodgers of the 19th century.

In 1799 Lieutenant Colonel Gaspard Le Marchant opened a school for army officers in the High Street. This establishment, known as the Royal Military College, tutored the students in a wide range of skills including trigonometry, geometry and French as well as siege warfare.

Wycombe Arts Festival takes place over several weeks starting in April at venues throughout High Wycombe and South Buckinghamshire. Featuring a varied programme of events including orchestral and jazz concerts, art exhibitions, theatre productions, talks, storytelling and walks.

The High Wycombe Street has a number of 18th and 19th century buildings, and ends at the colonnaded Guildhall that was built in 1757 by Henry Keene, funded by the Earl of Shelburne, and renovated in 1859.