History

The Chiltern Hills Brass Band has a long and rich history as the progeny of a number of successful and prestigious bands.

We were most recently known as Denham Hendon Brass, but changed our name to Chiltern Hills Brass in December 2012, two years after we moved to High Wycombe, to better suit the area and community we serve.

Denham Hendon Brass was originally formed by the amalgamation of Denham Brass and the John Laing Hendon Band in April 1998. 

Denham Brass can trace its history back through the Hillingdon Band, who enjoyed considerable success under the baton of conductor and composer Philip Sparke. Philip still retains an interest in the band with the role of Band President.

The Hillingdon Band started back at the end of the 19th century as the Botwell Brotherhood Band. Around the turn of the century, the name was changed to the Uxbridge and Hillingdon Band, and by 1929 it was known as the Hayes Silver Band. The name changed again to the Hayes and Harlington band before ‘Hillingdon Band’ was adopted on the formation of the London borough of Hillingdon. After re-locating to Denham following the closure of the factory where they practiced, the band became Denham Brass.

The John Laing Hendon Band was formed relatively recently in 1956. Within just eight years, under the direction of Donald Morrison, they were upgraded to Championship Section rating. They enjoyed many contest successes, appearing in the national finals at the Royal Albert Hall on many occasions and also making regular appearances on BBC radio programmes.

As Denham Hendon Brass, despite our short history, the band already had a number of contest honours to its name. The band won the south-east regional heat of the Harry Ramsden’s 70th Jubilee competition in June 1998. We achieved a 2nd place in the Open Section of the Buckinghamshire and District Brass Band Association Contest at Aylesbury in December 2001.

We came 6th in the First Section at the London and Southern Counties area contest of the National Brass Band Championships in Stevenage on 16 March 2003, under our new Musical Director Gordon Davies. Our soprano player also won the cornet soloist prize.

The band was placed 2nd out of 15 in the Second Section of the 2006 area contest and went on to compete in the National Finals at Harrogate in September and was promoted back up to the First Section for 2007.

Philip Sparke returned to conduct the band at the national finals. Although not in the prizes, everyone thoroughly enjoyed the preparations and the weekend itself. Philip expressed his delight at renewing his association with the band.

As Chiltern Hills Brass, we have continued to contest, and have spent time in both the First and Second sections. A number of our current, long-standing members enjoyed success with the Hendon and Hillingdon bands (which competed against each other at the time).

We are proud of our commitment to stay musically active during the pandemic – we have a library of lockdown videos available on our YouTube channel, and participated in two online contests (Cory in 2020 and Foden’s Whit Friday in 2021).

In 2022, after two years’ hiatus in in-person contesting due to COVID-19, we put in a very strong performance to come eighth out of 15 in the First Section, however, poor performances in the previous two contests meant that we were relegated again.

We achieved an exciting third placing out of 17 in the 2023 Second Section area contest, and received an accompanying invitation to the national finals in Cheltenham on 17 September, where we were placed 12th out of 19 bands.