 Hello, thank you for joining me. I'm in Chalfonson Peter today. Chalfonson Peter is a large village in Buckinghamshire And I'm just standing in a church yard by the Village Centre and what we're going to do today I discovered they have these plaques all around Chalfonson Peter and it's a trail you can do you can follow them And if you go in the library you can pick up this leaflet which tells you about each plaque and there's a little map inside and and So you can see each plaque and there's a picture of how something used to look and then you You know as you are here today you see it as it is now so it's a bit like looking at a past and present book but You really are here in the present and you get to see the past. So we've just walked through the parish church yard There'll be a bit more on the church later and we come out Into the car park and we're going to go and find plaque number one, which is at the The middle school so I'm gonna walk across here. I can't see it yet, but I'll just show it to you So what we'll do is we'll have a look at each plaque and then we can see you know Try and imagine how it would look so what is now the village car park? This was all once a larger part of a graveyard and I believe there were sort of more meadows and there wasn't you know All these houses here and the actual village would have been like I said over there by the church where some of it still is but it's this village has grown a lot and a lot of the village has been rebuilt and It really has changed, but you know, we're gonna look at some of those changes as we do the video. So come up here There is the school and And here's the first plaque now. What's quite interesting is Well, I'll let you have a look at the plaque is The picture they show you Isn't the building you see here It's actually the building behind which is hardest to see from here But there was once two school buildings one was probably for boys and one was for girls and they filled it in in the middle So what the plaque shows is the building behind we're now going to walk on and find the next one So we just come along church lane from where the school was the schools back there our building site By the way, they're building a new Baptist church and I'll show you the one it's going to replace Later on so we get to here just over there is the high street Which we'll talk about more in a minute. This is the marketplace now. Well, there's no cars I'm gonna run across talk more about the marketplace. Well now because I'm gonna show you the second plaque this one here So it shows the marketplace when it was brand new it was formerly called Gold Hill Lane It was all allotments up there and as the village grew in the 1920s. They built this parade of shops I believe there's an identical parade in rice lip in the London bar of Hillingdon and There's some newer shops here. There was a cinema there But we'll get on to that plate later and just here in front of chow font home and hobby store There was octagonal block of public toilets, which is long gone So we now will head up the marketplace. There's a couple more plaques here on this more modern building here This currently houses to co-op now if you look here at this plaque it shows Gold Hill Lane, which is now marketplace So you can see the difference in how it's been transformed in the 1920s to a parade of shops Now if you have a look here This is the Fairfork cars a car company Fairfork They're actually used to build cars here in chow front St. Peter on the side of Where this supermarket is and Then we turn around one more time looking that way you can see looking back down towards the high street You can see just how much and or how narrow the road was just how much it's widened So this build it where I've all gone actually all the buildings you see in there We're now going to carry on walking up to the top of Chow front St. Peter is so I said it used to be called Gold Hill Lane It's now in the marketplace a reason it's called Gold Hill Lane It's because it goes to Gold Hill and that's where we're going now So we've now come up marketplace formerly Gold Hill Lane now the reason it's called Gold Hill Lane It's because over there that is the Gold Hill that's Gold Hill common It's that bit in the foreground or the background rather which is known as the Gold Hill whenever it snows People come from miles around to go sledging there because it's on the best hills in the area So as we walk along here, we've now come down Hamden Road We are going to go back to Gold Hill common, but I've got one more plaque to show you along here this road Churchill Road, that's the road that goes along the back of the shops So, you know, well you can access the back of the shops this one here This is called Hamden House, which I think is rather amusing because Further up in the Chilterns in Buckinshire. There is a big stately home called Hamden House But here we are here's a Hamden House in Chow front St. Peter now as we come to here This is the Chow front St. Peter Hospital. There's a beautiful tulip tree that tree there is a tulip tree I'll explain why it's called a tulip tree in a minute. It's nothing to do with tulips the flower So as we come up to the old Dovecott The hospital this was a cottage hospital. It is still a hospital. It's not a big hospital But you know, it's a hospital. I don't know too much about hospitals But what I'm saying is it's not one of those massive ones. So I'm going to show you this plaque here So the hospital opened in 1871 home of the Hibbet family and so They provided the hospital for Chow and St. Peter now the reason this tree here is called a tulip tree It's nothing to do with tulips at all. It's the shape of the leaf. Have a look at that leaf It is the shape of a tulip flower. Let's point it up. See what I mean That's why they call it the tulip tree. Anyway, I'm now going to go back to Gold Hill Common and Show you some more of the plaques up there So as I head up towards Gold Hill, there's not a plaque on this one But I wanted to show it to you anyway. This is the coronation clock. It was put here in 1953 to commemorate the Queen's coronation I'm now going to take you up to the top of Gold Hill Common where we're going to find our next plaques So here we are at the top of Gold Hill Common now This is a large triangular piece of land in Chow, Fonson, Peter Called a common because it would have once been grazed by cattle and various animals And if you talk to some of the elderly residents of the village, some of them can remember Seeing it when it was all you know when it when he would have seen cattle grazing on the common So it's really quite a pleasant part of the village. We've got the houses along there We're just heading up to here to towards the Baptist Church now I said earlier on when we were down in Church Lane that the building site was a new Baptist Church That's the church it's going to replace the congregation has grown so they're moving to a larger site So I'm not actually sure what's going to happen with The that church building. I'd like to think um, you know, it'll be Kept for something and you know, maybe converted into apartments But be ashamed to knock it down because I think Gold Hill Common wouldn't be the same without the church Dominating the scene but as the next class going to tell us it's not the original church on that site There's been one before so if we come to this bus stop here Here we have the plaque Now that plaque that shows the original church now from looking at it looking at the cottages I think the original church was about there where those houses the ones painted white were it opened in 1792 and then it was replaced by its current building in 1817 it looks like at some point probably in 2021 it should be replaced by the new building in the village now has a pub here Jolly Farmer a lot of drinks in there when I was younger and That is where we should find our next plaque. So it's got to get across the road. It's starting to rain as well Yeah cross the road so here's Jolly Farmer The next plaque is just on the corner. So there is Gold Hill Baptist Church Which like I said, it's having its replacement built down in the village. Oh, here we are look here in the bushes Here is the Jolly Farmer plaque So you can see there was once a smaller pub building there It's been replaced by the much larger ones there today that gay blend still there I should show that to you now. It's just there now what we're going to do There's one more plaque up on Gold Hill Common So if you walk back towards the Baptist Church, I should show you the final plaque up here And then I shall end part one up here on Gold Hill Common in part two What we'll do is I'll show you more of the village center and we'll just carry on so we've been round Round all of them. So there's quite a few to see but I just like how you know, it gives us this opportunity To you know, imagine how somewhere would have been You know before is now sometimes it can be quite hard. It's not not so hard up here because apart from, you know, things like modern cars and Double-glazed windows hasn't really changed too much. Um, but you know, you don't get cows on the common You get dogs being walked on the common which, you know, it's perfectly fine. That's how things evolve But when we get down into the main part of the village things have changed a lot So, you know, that's where these plaques really come into their own that we can really, you know Try and imagine just how Chalfont St. Peter would have looked and you know You get I quite like looking at past and present books on railways and other things and whenever I go to these Towns and cities and villages. I do like to you know, imagine how things were If you've seen some of my videos where I explore old railway lines, you know It's a bit like doing that really except we're not doing it with railways There's no railways in Chalfont St. Peter by the way nearest railway line is at Giles Cross Although there is a railway station with the name Chalfont, Chalfont Latimer on the Metropolitan line And also served by Shilton Railways So but Giles Cross is actually the nearest railway station to here So here we come to the final plaque of part one gold hill pond So it seems hard to believe but there was a pond here I don't know why it was filled in but it's obviously there in the 1920s If anyone knows why it was filled in and those cottages over there, they are still called the pond cottages So I'm just looking at the trees. Are they the same ones? I'm not sure. It looks like a horse chestnut there We have got some or at least one horse chestnut there I think though, well, it's clearly it's not the same one It obviously actually I can just see over there. I won't walk over it I can just see the stump of a much larger tree. So that must be the tree in the picture What I thought I'd do though before we end the video As soon as I've pointed out the actual hill that is known as Gold Hill I thought we'll end there because you get quite a nice view over Chalfont St. Peter Back onto the main bulk of Gold Hill Common. This section of Common you kind of got the road going through it Heading down towards here He got the woodlands over there used to play in those woods a lot as a child and You know, it's it's somewhere I've sort of grown up I've known this area all my life In fact, going back to the pub over there the Jolly Farmer when I was first old enough to have a drink It was called the Village Hall. I remember I thought it was a funny name for a pub So I'm thinking people might not go there because they might actually think it is the Village Hall But it didn't seem to affect its custom. In fact, it was always very busy when I went in there And then in 2016 irreversed to its original name to Jolly Farm So as we come to here, this is the Gold Hill you can sort of see why because it kind of is almost sort of Golden and this is where lots and lots of people go sedging when it snows It's one of the best hills around for sedging So I'm gonna leave you with a view over Chalfont St. Peter walk back down to Village Enter And that's where we should do part two