Not just a great place to do business (and a bit of shopping…), Bucky-H is a very historical place in its own right. Here are some of the little-known facts we’ve discovered about one of our favourite towns in the district:
Buckhurst Hill
- Dick Turpin had a short period of “going straight” before he became a professional thief – he spent 1733-4 working as a butcher in Buckhurst Hill.
- Turpin and his cohorts were such a menace that security-minded residents of this area invented anti-burglar devices called ‘Turpin traps’, – wooden trapdoors positioned over a stairhead and fixed by a pole wedged against the upstairs ceiling.
- Buckhurst Hillwas originally known as “La Bocherste”, and later “Bucket Hill.” The meaning of the name is “hill of beech trees”
- In neighbouring Chigwell, Ye Olde King’s Head, which was run as a pub until 2011, is said to have been the inspiration for the Maypole Inn inCharles Dickens‘ Barnaby Rudge
- Chigwell School numbers among its former pupils Ben Shepherd, Ian Holm, Ken Campbell and William Penn who founded the American state of Pennsylvania – and the music for the hymn Abide with Me was written by WH Monk who once taught there.