page_title: Milton Keynes
section_title: Original towns and villages
hierarchical_section_title: Milton Keynes / Urban design / Original towns and villages
caption_attribution_description: grain miller's wind mill in New Bradwell, Milton Keynes
context_page_description: Milton Keynes is a large town in Buckinghamshire, England, about 50 miles north-west of London. At the 2011 Census, its population was almost 230,000; the Office for National Statistics estimates that it will reach 300,000 by 2025. The River Great Ouse forms its northern boundary; a tributary, the River Ouzel, meanders through its linear parks and balancing lakes. Approximately 25% of the urban area is parkland or woodland and includes two SSSIs.
  In the 1960s, the UK Government decided that a further generation of new towns in the South East of England was needed to relieve housing congestion in London. This new town, Milton Keynes, was to be the biggest yet, with a target population of 250,000 and a 'designated area' of about 22,000 acres. At designation, its area incorporated the existing towns of Bletchley, Wolverton, and Stony Stratford, along with another fifteen villages and farmland in between.
context_section_description: Milton Keynes consists of many pre-existing towns and villages that anchored the urban design, as well as new infill developments. The designated area outside the four main towns (Bletchley, Newport Pagnell, Stony Stratford, Wolverton) was largely rural farmland but included many picturesque North Buckinghamshire villages and hamlets: Bradwell village and its Abbey, Broughton, Caldecotte, Fenny Stratford, Great Linford, Loughton, Milton Keynes Village, New Bradwell, Shenley Brook End, Shenley Church End, Simpson, Stantonbury, Tattenhoe, Tongwell, Walton, Water Eaton, Wavendon, Willen, Great and Little Woolstone, Woughton on the Green. These historical settlements were made the focal points of their respective grid square. Every other district has an historical antecedent, if only in original farms or even field names.
  Bletchley was first recorded in the 12th century as Blechelai. Its station was an important junction (the London and North Western Railway with the Oxford-Cambridge Varsity Line), leading to the substantial urban growth in the town in the Victorian period. It expanded to absorb the villages of Water Eaton and Fenny Stratford.
  Bradwell  is a traditional rural village with earthworks of a Norman motte and bailey and parish church. There is a YHA hostel beside the church.
  Bradwell Abbey, a former Benedictine Priory and Scheduled Ancient Monument, was of major economic importance in this area of North Buckinghamshire before its dissolution in 1524. Nowadays there is only a small medieval chapel and a manor house occupying the site.
  New Bradwell, to the north of Bradwell and east of Wolverton, was built specifically for railway workers. The level bed of the old Wolverton to Newport Pagnell Line near here has been converted to a redway, making it a favoured route for cycling. A working windmill is sited on a hill outside the village.
  Great Linford appears in the Domesday Book as Linforde, and features a church dedicated to Saint Andrew, dating from 1215. Today, the outer buildings of the 17th century manor house form an arts centre.
  Milton Keynes (Village) is the original village to which the New Town owes its name. The original village is still evident, with a pleasant thatched pub, village hall, church and traditional housing. The area around the village has reverted to its 11th century name of Middleton (Middeltone). The oldest surviving domestic building in the area (c. 1300 CE), "perhaps the manor house", is here.
  Stony Stratford began as a settlement on Watling Street during the Roman occupation, beside the ford over the Great Ouse. There has been a market here since 1194 (by charter of King Richard I). The former Rose and Crown Inn on the High Street is reputedly the last place the Princes in the Tower were seen alive.
  The manor house of Walton village, Walton Hall, is the headquarters of the Open University and the tiny parish church (deconsecrated) is in its grounds.
  The small parish church (1680) at Willen was designed by the architect and physicist Robert Hooke. Nearby, there is a Buddhist Temple and a Peace Pagoda, which was built in 1980 and was the first built by the Nipponzan-Myōhōji Buddhist Order in the western world.
  The original Wolverton was a medieval settlement just north and west of today's town. The ridge and furrow pattern of agriculture can still be seen in the nearby fields.  The 12th century (rebuilt in 1819) 'Church of the Holy Trinity' still stands next to the Norman motte and bailey site. Modern Wolverton was a 19th-century New Town built to house the workers at the Wolverton railway works, which built engines and carriages for the London and North Western Railway.
  Among the smaller villages and hamlets are three –  Broughton, Loughton and Woughton on the Green –  that are of note in that their names each use a different pronunciation of the ough letter sequence in English.
caption: The 1815 windmill near New Bradwell village, beside the playing fields
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