ses gently to reach about 360 ft. at the north-west corner, about three miles away. The parish is roughly a mile and a half wide on its other axis, although it narrows to a point in the north-west. Large areas of alluvium occupy the flood plain of the Ouse and the higher land to the south of the village and in the west is covered Boulder Clay. In the valley formed by the small stream which runs through the centre of the parish broad patches of Oolitic Limestone are exposed. (fn. 11) Baker described the soil as a cold white clay, or in some parts a brown stone brash loam, overlying limestone. (fn. 12) An earlier writer commented on the excellence of the water supply and the availability of building stone, gravel and sand, as well as 'a good vein of marble'. (fn. 13)
In 1301 40 households were assessed to the lay subsidy in the vill of Wick Dive; there is no entry on the roll for Wick Hamon, (fn. 14) which may be included in this total. In the 1520s the two townships together contained about 35 households assessed to the subsidy. (fn. 15) A total of 58 households were assessed to the hearth tax in 1674, of which 28 were discharged through poverty. (fn. 16) In the early 18th century the parish contained about 70 houses. (fn. 17) A 'general guess' put the population at 273 in 1765 and 294 in 1774. (fn. 18) It had increased to 367 by 1801, including 13 navigators building the canal to Buckingham, (fn. 19) and continued to rise modestly to a peak of 536 in 1821. The parish had a population of 529 in 1861, after which there was a steady decline to 362 by 1911 and only 278 fifty years later. There was then a relatively sharp increase to 378 in 1971, followed by a fall to 317 in 1981.
The modern main road from Stony Stratford to Buckingham, which leaves Watling Street at the crossroads in Old Stratford, runs through the southern part of the parish, some distance from the village of Wicken. This route, which until a bypass was built in the 1980s passed through Deanshanger, (fn. 20) was turnpiked under an Act of 1815. (fn. 21) In the early 18th century there was an alternative road from Old Stratford through Passenham and Wicken, which followed a course closer to the river, thus avoiding Deanshanger. (fn. 22) Although described in 1747 as the best known way and the general highway by which most waggons and travellers went from Old Stratford to Buckingham, (fn. 23) it had disappeared by 1779 (fn. 24) and was probably stopped up when the common fields of Wicken through which it ran were inclosed in 1757. (fn. 25) In the early 18th century two by-roads ran north from these main roads to Wicken village, from where other lanes continued north towards Whittlebury. The main east-west route through the village linked Wicken with Deanshanger and Leckhampstead. (fn. 26) By the early 19th century parts of the north-south route to the south of the village had disappeared or declined into footpaths, leaving the roads from Deanshanger, Whittlebury and Leckhampstead as the main links between Wicken and its neighbours. (fn. 27)
The Buckingham branch of the Grand Junction Canal passed through the southern part of the parish on its way from Old Stratford to Buckingham. Originally projected in 1793 as a scheme to canalise the Ouse from Buckingham to Passenham, from where a short artificial cut would continue to the sidecut aleady agreed on from the main line of the Grand Junction at Cosgrove to a wharf near Watling Street at Old Stratford, (fn. 28) the branch was finally built as a deadwater canal throughout. Digging at Wicken began in October 1800 and the first boat passed from Old Stratford to Buckingham on 7 May 1801. (fn. 29) In July that year Mrs. Prowse of Wicken Park took two of her nieces on a trip on the canal through her estate, and in August she watched the canal company committee pass by on their way from Paddington to Buckingham. (fn. 30) The nearest public wharfs serving Wicken were at Deanshanger, about a mile away. (fn. 31) The branch fell into disuse in the early 20th century and was largely filled in, although in the 1990s a Bucking