Beaconsfield

Beaconsfield is a market town in Buckinghamshire, England, about 30 miles NW of London. The town sits in the highly attractive Chiltern Hills and is very popular as a place to live for up and coming commuters travelling into London. Thus the average cost of housing in the town is extremely high.

The parish is mainly given over arable land though some forest remains that was planted to supply the furniture industry of High Wycombe. The parish church is dedicated to St Mary.

The town name first made an appearance in manor records of 1184 and was written as Bekenesfelde or "Beacon's Field" in modern English, meaning that here was a field in which could be found a beacon or signal fire.

In the Victorian period the town was the home constituency of Benjamin Disraeli, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in 1868 and then again from 1874 until 1880. In 1876 he was made the 1st Earl of Beaconsfield by Queen Victoria. It was due to this that Beaconsfield became a popular road name in industrial cities across the country in the late Victorian period.

Today the town is very prosperous and quite picturesque.

It is also the birthplace of Terry Pratchett.