Ibstone

Ibstone
Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire
Cobstone Windmill, Ibstone
Location
Grid reference:	SU755935
Location:	51°38’4"N, 0°54’33"W
Data
Population:	237  (2001)
Post town:	High Wycombe
Postcode:	HP14
Dialling code:	01491
Local Government
Council:	Buckinghamshire
Parliamentary constituency:	Wycombe

Ibstone is a village and parish on the border of Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire. It is in the Chiltern Hills about two miles south of Stokenchurch.

The village name is Anglo-Saxon in origin and means 'Hibba's boundary stone', referring to the boundary between the two counties. At the time of King Edward the Confessor the village was in the possession of Tovi, thane of the king, and was called Hibestanes.

The manor house of the village is remarkable because the boundary between the two counties runs straight through the middle of its parlour. The parish church, in the Oxfordshire part of the parish, stands separate from the rest of the village; this is a common occurrence in places in this part of the country that had some standing in the pre-Roman Celtic period.

The village includes Cobstone Windmill. The windmill was built around 1816 and is unusual in that it is a twelve-sided smock mill, still housing some of its original machinery. It was converted into a residency during the 1950s and then refurbished after 1971. It was also used as Caractacus Potts' workshop in the 1968 film, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and seen in The New Avengers episode, The House of Cards. The actress Hayley Mills and her film producer husband Roy Boulting owned the windmill and lived there in the early 1970s.

The politician Barbara Castle also lived in the village.

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Ibstone)

• St Nicholas' Church

St Nicholas Church