Wycombe

High Wycombe lies in the valley of the River Wye among the Chiltern Hills. Its market served the surrounding countryside, while watermills supported the production of corn and cloth. Paper making became important in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and chairmaking grew from a cottage craft into a substantial local industry. By the early nineteenth century small workshops were making furniture for the London market, drawing on the skills of the town and its neighbourhood.