Brill
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For other uses of the word Brill see Brill (disambiguation)
Brill is a village in Buckinghamshire, England, close to the border with Oxfordshire. It is situated about four miles north west of Long Crendon, seven miles south east of Bicester. Although it is still in possession of a Royal charter to hold a weekly market on account of its prestigious history (see below), there hasn't been a market held here for some years.
The village name is a combination of Brythonic and Anglo Saxon words for 'hill' (Brythonic breg and Anglo Saxon hyll). At the time of King Edward the Confessor it was a town known as Bruhella.
The manor of Brill has, for a long time, been a property belonging to the Crown. Edward the Confessor had a grand palace here, that remained in place through to the time of King Charles I, who turned the building into a garrison. This action led to its eventual destruction by John Hampden in 1643 in the English Civil War. There is evidence that kings Henry II, John, Henry III and Stephen all held court here.
Ecclesiastically, Brill was originally a chapel of ease to the nearby parish of Oakley, though certainly since the English Civil War it has been a parish in its own right. There was also a convent in Brill, dedicated to St Frideswide, and a hermitage dedicated to St Werburgh, though these were both disbanded during the dissolution of the monasteries.
After the completion in 1868 of the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway, the Duke of Buckingham had built the light railway to provide freight access by rail to his estates at Wotton. The extension to Brill gave access to a brickworks there. The line was opened in 1871, and following public demand passenger facilities were provided early in 1872. Originally known as the Brill Tramway, the line’s name changed to "Oxford and Aylesbury Tramroad" when a company was formed in an abortive attempt to extend the line to Oxford.
The original Quainton Road station was north of the Quainton-Waddesdon road, and wagons from the Brill line reached it by means of a wagon turntable; there was no direct access. When the Metropolitan Railway took over the line in 1896, it doubled the main line from Aylesbury and resited the station to its present position, replacing a level crossing with the present road overbridge; a running connection between the Brill line and the main line was constructed at that time. In 1935 on the creation of the LPTB control was transferred to it from the Metropolitan and Great Central Joint Committee which had taken it over in 1906; the whole branch was closed on 30th November 1935.
The hamlet of Little London was founded around the station, in honour of the metropolitan ambiance the planners were trying to evoke. Although the tramway has long gone, Little London is still there.
Today the village of Brill is very small, but it is easy to see from some of the buildings in the village and the extent of its common land that it was once a grand place. The parish church is dedicated to All Saints.