Bledlow church stands perched on the edge of a steep wooded combe or ravine known as the Lyde (from the Old English ‘hlith’, ‘slope’). Murray’s Handbook for Bucks describes it in 1860 as being overhung by old trees and ivy growing out of the cliff, and highly picturesque when cattle were driven down to drink there. The Victoria County History: Buckinghamshire (1908) gives as a local rhyme:
They that live and do abide,
Shall see the church fall at Lyde…
and says the brook running from the pool there is called the Lyde Brook.
Murray’s Handbook, which calls the ravine the Glyde, says this was a prophecy of Mother Shipton.