The church of St Dunstan, and the chapel of St Peter, serve the people of the parish of Monks Risborough with Owlswick. The parish is the oldest recorded ecclesiastical parish in England, having been recorded in a charter from the year 903.
The charter granted the parish to the care of monks based at Canterbury, which led to the village at the parish’s heart becoming known as ‘Monks’ Risborough. The other half of the village’s name, ‘Risborough,’ is derived from an Anglo-Saxon term meaning ‘the scrub-covered hills’.
The parish, outlined below in red and with St Dunstan’s and St Peter’s marked by crosses, encompasses not only the village of Monks Risborough and the hamlet of Owlswick, but also the hamlets of Meadle, Askett, and Whiteleaf. To its southeastern edge, it travels over the Chiltern Hills towards the edge of the village of Speen.
