Flaunden

Flaunden is a village and civil parish in Hertfordshire, England, close to the border with Buckinghamshire, on the edge of the Chiltern Hills. Old Flaunden was on the banks of the River Chess, but owing to constant flooding, the settlement moved up the hill to its present location in the 18th and early 19th century.

==History== The manor of Flaunden is first mentioned in a dated document in 1279, but other grants of land connected with the manor precede this, when the manor was held by Nicholas de Flaunden. Old Flaunden was on the banks of the River Chess in, but owing to constant flooding and disease, the villagers began to move up the hill to the present location during the 18th century. The old church was abandoned in 1838 and is in the form of a Greek cross dating from about 1230; it is now a ruin with remnants of walls up to high in a wood by the river. The new church at the top of the hill was built in 1838 and was the first church designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott. By the end of the 19th century, only two cottages and an orchard remained on the original village site, which is now a meadow.