Bourne End is a village mostly in the parish of Wooburn, but partly in that of Little Marlow in Buckinghamshire, England. It is about five miles (8 km) south-east of High Wycombe and three miles (5 km) east of Marlow, near the boundary with Berkshire and close to where the Buckinghamshire River Wye empties into the Thames.

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.

The length of the River Wye was the provider of water power for many mills in the valley for hundreds of years, and Bourne End was no exception. There were four on the final stretch of the river: Princes Mill, Jacksons (or Gunpowder) Mill, Hedsor Mill and Lower Mill. These mills were historically the predominant employers in the area, along with the local farms and two wharfs on the Thames.

In the early nineteenth century, the settlement known as Bourne End was a hamlet of Wooburn parish, along with others such as Spring Gardens, Eghams Green, Cores End, Heavens Lea and Upper Bourne End. This changed with the emergence of the Wycombe Railway Company in 1846. By 1854, Isambard Kingdom Brunel had designed and constructed a railway linking Maidenhead to High Wycombe, via Bourne End. The station at Bourne End was originally named Marlow Road; then in 1873 a branch line to Marlow was built, and a year later the station was renamed Bourne End station to avoid confusion with the new station at Marlow town. The railway created more travel opportunities for locals and greatly benefited the mills, and thus Bourne End expanded, on a greater scale than other similar settlements in the surrounding area. See Marlow Branch Line and Marlow Donkey for more information.

The hamlets soon merged into what is now known as Bourne End, as did Well End and Coldmoorholme (or Coldmoorholm, formerly Coldmoorham or Coldmorham) in the neighbouring parish of Little Marlow. Locally, the area of Coldmoorholm is known as 'Spade Oak'. Both a church and school were built at the turn of the century for the residents' convenience. The Parade became established as the focal point of the village for shops and services.

In the 1920s Bourne End became home for two distinguished literary figures; Enid Blyton, a perennially popular children's writer, moved into Old Thatch on Coldmoorholme Lane, and Edgar Wallace, a prolific crime author and dramatist, bought Chalklands off Blind Lane. Another resident at this time was Louis Blériot, the French aviator and aircraft builder, who lived at New York Lodge beside the Thames.

The Royalty Cinema opened in The Parade in 1934. The late 1940s saw extensive development in Bourne End, of the Chalklands estate and the Council Estate north of The Parade. The 1960s saw the building of the Community Centre and Library in Wakeman Road after some years of local campaigning.

The Beeching Axe hit the village in 1969, as it was announced that the line between Bourne End and High Wycombe, which had suffered reduced usage after the direct connection between Wycombe and London by the opening of the Great Western and Great Central Joint Railway in 1899, would be closed. The track bed was lifted soon after closure in 1970. A commercial estate was developed adjacent to the station, though most of the course taken by the railway remains as a footpath between the village and Wooburn.