The first known documentary reference to Wendover, then known as "Wændofron", is in the will of Ælfheah, the ealdorman of Hampshire, and dates from between 965 and 971. Prior to the Norman Conquest, the manor, which at the time measured 24 hides in area, was held by Edward the Confessor. The settlement appears to have been centred some to the south of the present-day focus of the town, near the current location of the parish church of St Mary. By 1086 the manor of "Wendovre" was in the hundred of Aylesbury, with William the Conqueror as its tenant in chief.