The road did not exist until 1775, when it was cut through the countryside as part of the scheme to replace the old route from Oxford to London (via Cheney Lane, Old Road, Shotover, and Wheatley) by a new road via Stokenchurch.
Bartholomew was the son of John Tipping of Chequers at Stokenchurch in Oxfordshire (now Buckinghamshire) and Woolley Park at Chaddleworth in Berkshire and his wife, Mary Spire.
She was subsequently attended by a local doctor, Henry Hayman F.R.C.S., from nearby Stokenchurch.