The village was known as Isenhampstead until the middle of the 13th century, when it became known as Isenhampstead Chenies from the Cheyne family who occupied the Manor until the 16th century. In the 19th century the old name was dropped.

The village and surrounding land came into the possession of John Russell (1486-1555), the 1st Earl of Bedford, on his marriage to the daughter of Sir Guy Sapcote in 1526 and for decades was the main family seat of the Russell’s and remained in their possession until 1954 when it was sold to raise part of the £421 million death duty occasioned by the death of the 12th Duke.

John Russell was created Baron Russell of Chenies in 1539 and received large areas in Devon, Cornwall, Somerset, the Eastern Counties, Covent Garden and 7 acres of London. He was the founder of the wealth and greatness of the house of Russell.

The village is a typical example of a Feudal or ‘close’ village belonging to one landlord who could control the number and occupation of the cottages in it. Largely re-built in the 1840's and 1850's, a period of great agricultural prosperity, Chenies was described soon after its improvement as a 'beautiful specimen of an English village'. The noble old Manor House, the Church, the school and the elegant commodious and well arranged cottages, are all pleasing and useful mementoes to that illustrious family whose honoured dead now sleep peacefully in that quiet church” - and so it remains today.

Such estate cottages are perhaps the most enduring memorial of the Victorian social order. Designed for the poor man (a labourer’s wage   was about £25 a year) by his betters, they represented an outsider’s idea of what an ideal cottage should be. Usually containing  2 bedrooms each they cost £300 a pair to build.  The most benevolent housing is to be found only on the larger estates; even so, few landlords   were as lavish as the Duke of Bedford, who, throughout the1850's ploughed back 20% of      his gross rental in improvements