The Village was known as Isenhampstead until  the middle of the thirteenth century, taking the    name of ‘Chenies’ from the ‘Cheyne’ family who occupied the Manor House until the 16^th Century. The village was the original family seat of the ‘Russells’ from 1526 coming into the possession of John, first Earl of Bedford on his marriage to the daughter of Sir Guy Sapcote, until 1954. It was sold in 1954 to raise part of the death duties arising on the death of the twelfth Duke.

A typical example of a feudal or ‘Close’ Village, Chenies was largely rebuilt during the period of great agricultural prosperity in the 1840’s and 1850’s, from which time many of the redbrick cottages date. Soon after this period of improvements Chenies was described as a ‘beautiful specimen of an English village’; and it remains so even to the present.