Some local historians believe that the site where Hitchambury now stands was probably an iron-age hillfort and was known as 'The Hill Fort of the one who follows the cattle' ! Apparently 'bury' is a distortion of a Saxon word burgh which meant fort or stronghold. Until 1909 Hitchambury Manor or Hitchambury as it was then, used to be the Parsonage for Hitcham Church and a terrier, or list of church lands and buildings, state that the parsonage was 'built all of timber and covered in tiles and the whole building contrived in two storeys and siposed in fifteen rooms. Hitchambury was enlarged in 1685 and 1702 and new barns were erected in 1679. Also a set of Elm trees were planted in 1684, though sadly these no longer exist. A reference to the Rev. W.N. Crover (Rector from 1833-1866) should not go unmentioned, he was described as "at first to busy with other things, and then to feeble". When he was elderly he was wheeled to church in a bathchair by his manservant only to find that no parishioners had shown up so the good Reverend was promptly pushed back again! In 1909 the church sold Hitchambury to Mr. Charles Selwyn Awdry for £4200 and with it four and a half acres for a further £3429. More recently Hitchambury was used as a nurses hostel to the Canadian Red Cross Hospital which was housed in the nearby Cliveden estate. When the hospital was closed in the 1980's Hitchambury fell into disuse until the early 90's when its current career was started. My thanks to the author Mervyn Eden whose booklet 'The Hitcham Heritage 1126-1976' I have borrowed heavily from.