The village name is Anglo Saxon in origin, and means 'woodland clearing'. In the Domesday Book of 1086 it was recorded as Lee.
The village was founded originally as a chapel of ease for Weston Turville, but was granted by the Turville family of that manor to the abbey at Great Missenden. At the dissolution of the monasteries in 1547 the village continued as a hamlet in Great Missenden until very recently when a parish was formed at the chapel of St John the Baptist.
The parish church in the village is unusual in that it consists of two buildings: the ancient chapel of ease, and the more modern Victorian construction. Both sit within a oval churchyard, common in places of importance in the pre-Roman period.
In the parish sits the hamlet of Lee Clump, named for a small group of houses separate from the main village.