Bourne End's original location differed from today's established village centre, and was a half-mile downstream on the River Thames. The name refers to the end of the river ("bourne" being an obsolete term for river), and derived from the mouth of the River Wye. Then a hamlet, it appears on Morden's 1722 map of Buckinghamshire as "Born end". It was noted in the 19th century, however, that the name had been corrupted to "Bone End", apparently through local mispronunciation and thence on official maps and documents. In 1858, the vicar of Wooburn succeeded in reversing the change, and the corrected name remains in use today.