The village name is Anglo Saxon in origin, and means 'Sigewine's farm'. It was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Siwinestone. The village is where the family name of Simpson is said to originate.
In the mid Nineteenth century the village was described as "in appearance, one of the most wretched of many miserable villages in the county". This was due to the author's approach to the village being blocked in the winter time by a ford 200 metres wide, and three feet deep. This ford was fixed in the 1860s when the road was raised by three and a half feet by the manorial Warren family.
Reference for quote: Sheahan, James Joseph, "History and Topography of Buckinghamshire", published in 1862.