At the heart of Wisstingham, a quintessentially English village, lies the village green and its duck pond (complete with ducks). The green, which in the summer resounds to the sound of leather against willow with the village’s cricket matches, is bounded by a Norman church, rows of thatched cottages, George Pendlebury’s post office and general store, Harriet Brown’s bakery, George Millet’s butcher’s shop and the ‘The Happy Rat’, one of the villages three quaint hostelries.
Along the village’s narrow streets can be found a variety of other small shops and businesses, the Council offices, the library, the Mazawat café and its two other pubs, ‘The Phantom Hound’ and ‘The Ferret and Wardrobe’.
Not least among the village’s attractions is Wisstingham Hall, a stately home owned by successive generations of the Fitzgerald family since before the English Civil War, its present owner Commander Selwyn Fitzgerald.
Bounded by the Hopestanding road on one side, the hall is approached by a long, gravel drive flanked by tall sycamores. It is surrounded on two sides by lawns and beyond the woods, a wildflower meadow. Beyond the woods there is also a lake garden, adjacent to the boathouse and jetty, which stand on Wisstingham lake itself, a large expanse of water surrounding a central island.
On another side, the Hall is flanked by a further lawn and a steep rise topped by a tower, a folly built by Sir Henry Fitzgerald to commemorate the Duke of Wellington’s victory at the battle of Waterloo.
Beyond the folly, there lies a deep lake, adjacent to the quarry which is a major source of income for the estate, in addition to the stables and paddock. These are to be found on the opposite side of the Hall where, the square, cobbled courtyard fronting the stables is surrounded by cottages (including that of the Monaghan family), tack rooms and storage buildings. At the far corner stands another, older tower and the old dungeon. Adjacent to the paddock and training paddock lies the public recreational area on land leased to the village by the Wisstingham estate, a source of much controversy as readers of ‘Murder Mapped Out’ will have discovered. The estate owns further agricultural land, as well as the gallops for the stables.
The village lies close to Frogsham Bay, a pretty, unspoilt coastal village with cobbled streets, a harbour and lifeboat station which is overlooked by a terrace of whitewashed fisherman’s cottages. Visiting this quaint oasis is almost like stepping back in time.
To the east of the village and the Hall lies the nearest town of Hopestanding, a thriving centre of commerce and industry, and beyond Hopestanding, the even larger town of Hillingden. In another direction lies the town of Ampersham.