WYCOMBE (WEST), a parish in the hundred of DESBOROUGH, county of BUCKINGHAM, 2 miles (N. W. by W.) from High Wycombe, containing 1545 inhabitants. The living is a discharged vicarage, in the archdeaconry of Buckingham, and diocese of Lincoln, rated in the king's books at £11. 9. 7., endowed with £800 private benefaction, and £200 royal bounty, and in the patronage of Sir J. Dashwood King, Bart. The church, dedicated to St. Lawrence, which is surrounded by an ancient intrenchment, was erected, in 1763, at the expense of Lord le Despenser; it is an elegant structure in the Grecian style, with a profusion of Mosaic ornaments, and containing some handsome monuments; in the adjoining mausoleum is one of considerable beauty to the memory of Sarah, Baroness le Despenser, with many memorials of the Dashwood family and others; and in one of its recesses was deposited, in 1775, an urn enclosing the heart of Paul Whitehead, the poet, which he had bequeathed to Lord le Despenser. The church occupies an eminence finely clothed with woods, emerging from which the tower and the mausoleum form objects strikingly picturesque. There are places of worship for Independents and Wesleyan Methodists. The inhabitants are chiefly employed in the manufacture of lace and chairs. Catherine Pye, in 1713, bequeathed £7 per annum for teaching poor children. In the neighbourhood is an ancient camp, doubly intrenched, called Desborough Castle, which gives name to the hundred; vestiges of buildings, together with window-frames of stone, similar to those of a church, have been discovered on its site. Under the hill on which the church stands is a cave, but when and by whom dug is uncertain.