Milton Keynes

Milton Keynes has its own nature reserve in Bletchley. The Blue Lagoon there attracts many local visitors every day. Many school children in Bletchley learn about the history of this beautiful site.

Pre-history: the original towns and villages

Main articles: Bletchley, Bradwell, New Bradwell, Broughton, Caldecotte, Central Milton Keynes, Fenny Stratford, Great Linford, Loughton, Middleton, The Shenleys, Simpson, Stantonbury, Stony Stratford, Tattenhoe, Walton, Willen,Wolverton, Great Woolstone and Woughton on the Green

• At Bancroft, the foundations of a Romano-British farm are to be seen in what is now the North Loughton Park, overlooking the Shenley Brook. The brook valley here is part of the flood control system and there is a permanent wetland with associated plants and wild-life. The famous Concrete Cows are at the southern end of the park.

During World War II, British, Polish and American cryptographers at Bletchley Park broke a large number of Axis codes and ciphers, including the German Enigma machine.

• Bletchley was first recorded in the 12th century as Blechelai. Its station was a major Victorian junction (the London and North Western Railway with the Oxford-Cambridge Varsity Line), leading to the substantial urban growth in the town in that period. It expanded to absorb the villages of Water Eaton and Fenny Stratford.
• * Bletchley Park was home to the Government Code and Cypher School during the Second World War. The famous Enigma code was cracked here, and the building housed what was arguably the world's first programmable computer, Colossus. The house is now a museum of war memorabilia, cryptography and computing.

• The Benedictine Priory at Bradwell was of major economic importance in this area of North Buckinghamshire before the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The routes of the medieval trackways converge on the site from some distance (many of which are now Redways or bridleways). Nowadays, there is only a small medieval chapel and a manor house occupying the site.

• New Bradwell, to the north of the medieval Bradwell (Abbey) and just across the canal and the railway to the east of Wolverton, was built specifically for railway workers. It has a working windmill. The level bed of the old tramway from Newport Pagnell to Wolverton ends here and has been converted to a redway, making it a favourite route for cycling.

• Broughton¹ was a tiny hamlet on the old Northampton to London turnpike, joining Watling Street at Fenny Stratford.

• Caldecotte is small hamlet, originally of 8 houses, in the south east of Milton Keynes near Bow Brickhill, now largely surrounded by a balancing lake.

• Central Milton Keynes is built on the highest land. The original moot mound of the Secklow Hundred remains extant behind the central Library.

• The name Fenny Stratford is an Anglo Saxon expression meaning "marshy ford on a Roman road". The Roman road in this case is the Watling Street. There are traces of the Roman settlement Magiovinium on the edge of the present day occupation. The town grew in the canal era, when the Grand Union Canal came through. With the coming of the railway, Fenny declined and was swept up by its neighbour, Bletchley that was growing to be an important railway town.

• Written as Great Linford to distinguish it from the even tinier Little Linford across the River Ouse, this village is another on the Grand Union Canal. It appears in the Domesday Book as Linforde, and features a church to Saint Andrew dating from 1215. Today, the outer buildings of the seventeenth-century manor house form an Arts Centre, and the house itself is a prestigious recording studio.

• The present day name of Loughton¹ is Anglo Saxon, meaning 'Luhha's estate'. In the Domesday Book of 1086 the village was recorded as Lochintone. The village is in the linear park and hosts the National Badminton training centre and a major equestrian facility.

• Milton Keynes Village is the original village to which the New City 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 original name of Middleton, as shown on old maps of the 1700s. The oldest [link] surving domestic building in the area, a fourteenth century manor house, is here.

• The Shenley villages are on the west side of Watling Street opposite Loughton and were originally part of the larger settlement recorded in the Domesday Book as Senelai. In Shenley Church End, there are the earthworks of a motte and bailey castle ("Shenley Toot") and its surrounding village.

• Simpson is a small hamlet on the original Northampton to London road and on the Grand Union Canal.

• Little if anything remains of the original village that was Stantonbury. Today it is better known for its large secondary school, Stantonbury Campus and Milton Keynes Music Service.

Stony Stratford high street in festive mood

• There has been a market in Stony Stratford since 1194 (by charter of King Richard I). Two hotels in the centre of town, The Cock and The Bull were originally coaching inns on the main London to Chester and North Wales turnpike (Watling Street). Travellers gossip and rumour was exchanged at the two and was renowned for being far-fetched and fanciful. This is believed to be the origin of the .

• Just a few farm houses, a moat and a church[link] (1540) remain of historical Tattenhoe village and Manor — it was largely deserted in the 16th century. Nearby and just outside the city boundary, the foundations of the Benedictine Priory at Snelshall can still be seen.

• 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. It is on the banks of the river Ouzel, a tributary of the Great Ouse, where there a disused balancing lake has been naturalised and is home to reeds, bulrushes, reed warbler, reed bunting, water rail, sparrowhawk, kestrel, green woodpecker, grass snake and many varieties of odonata. Surrounding the reedbed are ponds and open water, ancient hedgerows and hay meadow.

The Peace Pagoda

• The tiny Parish Church (1680) at Willen contains the only unaltered building by the architect and physicist Robert Hooke. Nearby, there is a Buddhist Temple and a Peace Pagoda. The district borders the River Ouzel: there is a large balancing lake here, to capure flash floods before they cause problems down stream on the River Great Ouse. The north basin is a wild-life sanctuary and a favourite of migrating acquatic birds. The south basin is for leisure use, favoured by wind surfers and dinghy sailors. The circuit of the lakes is a favoured "fun run".

• 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 and the Saxon (rebuilt in 1819) Church of the Holy Trinity still sits 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).

• The twin villages of Great Woolstone and Little Woolstone are centrally located in the new city, yet retain much of their rural charm. They are listed in the Domesday Book as Wlsiestone, an Anglo-saxon word meaning "Wulfsige's farm". The Grand Union Canal runs alongside: the village pub was built to relieve the navvies of their wages and retains many original features.

• In the Domesday Book, Woughton on the Green was recorded as Ulchetone, an Anglo Saxon name meaning Eoca's Farm. Over the years, the pronunciation¹ altered to "Wufton" and later spelt Woughton. "On the Green" refers to the traditional village green in the centre of the village. The Grand Union Canal runs alongside.

Milton Keynes in popular culture

Miscellanea

• The city's road system, with its abundance of roundabouts and scarcity of traffic lights, is famously difficult to navigate for those unfamiliar with the city, while self-evident to locals. The resultant frustration for visiting motorists is almost certainly the origin of Milton Keynes' often surprisingly bitter reputation with out-of-towners. The city is notable for its number of roundabouts. Their number is far higher than is typical in British towns: for example, within the city limits, the A421 route passes through 13 roundabouts in a 10.7 km stretch, and the A509 route passes through 12 roundabouts in a 6.4 km stretch. A book called Milton Keynes Roundabouts led to further editions for other towns.
• Although the grid roads have conventional names such as Portway and Saxon Street, their original planning designations have stuck and locals are more comfortable with the shorthand "H5" and "V7" (where V is vertical or north/south and H is horizontal or east/west). The Vs are Streets and the Hs are Ways.
• The road that goes through the city centre, Midsummer Boulevard, is named because it is aligned so that the sun shines directly along it on midsummer each year.
• The courtyard area of the city train station which displays a Steam Engine (a replica London and North Western Railways' "Bloomer") is widely regarded as one of the best places to skateboard in Europe. Due to the arrangement of the pavements, skateboards can move freely and it has plenty of places to attempt "Grinds" and other skateboarding tricks. However in recent years, the Council has disliked the skateboarders' use of this area and has since built a skate park called Station Square across the street under the Bus station. (See Amenities above).
• Marshall Amplifiers and speakers, much loved by rock and heavy metal bands, is based in Bletchley. It produced the amplifier with a volume dial that went up to 11, for the spoof 'rockumentary' This is Spinal Tap.
• In the film Love Actually one of the background people learning to speak English says the line "Milton Keynes has many roundabouts".
• Milton Keynes provided locations for the films Withnail and I, The Fourth Protocol and .
• Denbigh North Leisure (just north of Bletchley) was home to the Sanctuary Music Arena, a music venue that was pivotal in the development of the UK's dance music scene. It was demolished in 2004 to make way for the Milton Keynes football stadium and retail development.

Writers, artists and celebrities

• Many artists have played at the National Bowl, Milton Keynes and some have released DVD or audio recordings. See that article for detailed list.
• Milton Keynes also appears in Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's book Good Omens, as an example of a town neither heaven nor hell take credit for, but both regard as a success: "it was built to be modern, efficient, healthy, and, all in all, a pleasant place to live. Many Britons find this amusing." The town is also parodied in the Robert Rankin book Web Site Story.
• The British Comedian Bill Bailey makes reference to Milton Keynes in his stand up show Part Troll, calling the city Satan's lay-by.
• The humourist Miles Kington once had a book cover cartoon with the caption "Miles Kington? I thought that was one of these dreadful new towns" — not simply an observation that his name resembles a place name, but almost certainly also a reference to Milton Keynes.
• The UK TV and radio personality Noel Edmonds is credited with tainting the image of Milton Keynes in the 1970s by repeatedly deriding it as a concrete jungle and the natural home of the famous Concrete Cows. The Development Corporation was quick to point out that Milton Keynes has over 20 million trees. The Concrete Cows are among the earliest examples of conceptual art.
• Milton Keynes is parodied as Milton Springsteen: It's Quite Nice, Really! in Alexei Sayle's book Train To Hell. Rather than concrete cows, Milton Springsteen features "android yokels."
• The Travel Writer Bill Bryson also features Milton Keynes in his book Notes From A Small Island, in which he gets lost in the pedestrian subway system, the redways, having decided not to ask for directions.
• Milton Keynes is the birthplace of Errol Barnett who is an anchor and reporter for Channel One News in the United States. He lived in [Crownhill] and attended [Holmwood First School] and [Two Mile Ash Middle School] before moving to the U.S..
• Contrary to (allegedly) popular misconception, Milton Keynes was not named after the poet John Milton nor the economists Milton Friedman and John Maynard Keynes (indeed "Keynes" in the latter is pronounced¹ "kay", not "key"), but after a village of the same name that already existed on the site of the proposed New City. The suffix 'village' was added creating the name Milton Keynes Village in 1991, to distinguish it from the larger city. The name Milton Keynes and its similarity to the names of the famous economists Milton Friedman and John Maynard Keynes has often led to various silly jokes. Once on the television show Yes, Prime Minister, when the PM Jim Hacker mentioned Milton Keynes, the person to whom he was speaking mentioned how Milton Keynes was an economist and the intellectual leader of the Freedmen.
• Recently the city itself became the subject for a series of works by locally born artist Mike Pinches. Pinches captures unusual, contradictory and bizarre images from the urban landscape of Milton Keynes. View his work here [link]

Access

• By rail, Milton Keynes has five stations —
• *three on the north/south West Coast Main Line : Bletchley (MK south), Milton Keynes Central, and Wolverton (MK north)
• *three on the east/west Marston Vale Line (the remnant of the Oxford-Cambridge Varsity Line) : Bletchley (again), Fenny Stratford, and Bow Brickhill (MK south-east).
• ** Inter-city rail services run to Milton Keynes Central only.

• By Road:
• *North/South
• **M1 Northbound: J14 for central and northern areas, J13 for southern areas (Bletchley to Wavendon).
• **M1 Southbound: J15A (via A45 then A5) for north side (Stony Stratford and Wolverton); J14 for Central Milton Keynes and south side.
• **Also A5 (Watling Street) and A509.
• *East/West
• **A421 (centre and south), A422 (north).
• *Many long-distance coaches to the Midlands and North (including National Express services from London Victoria Coach Station and Golders Green Bus Station) stop at the rather desolate Milton Keynes Coachway beside M1 Junction 14, near a park and ride car park, about three miles (5 km) from the centre (3.5 miles from MK Central station). For connecting bus services, see [MKWEB]. Stagecoach operates a coach service (X5) running west to east (Oxford, Milton Keynes, Bedford, Cambridge). This service calls at MK Central railway station, Central MK and the Coachway.

• By Bicycle: Milton Keynes is served by routes 6 and 51 on the National Cycle Network. Cycle storage can be found along route 51 at Milton Keynes Central railway station (covered cycle racks) and at the junction of Midsummer Boulevard and Witan Gate, where there are storage and changing facilities available.

• By Air
• *The nearest international airport (50 km) is Luton, but there is only an hourly coach service from 06:00 to 21:00 from there to the centre and to MK Central station. This airport is mainly used by low cost airlines, notably Easyjet and Ryanair. Birmingham International Airport (100 km) is more mainstream, with frequent rail connections from Birmingham International railway station to MK Central.
• *The other London airports Heathrow, Gatwick and (especially) Stansted can be rather painful to reach by public transport if you are unfamiliar with local British transport idiosyncracies. The public transport route from these stations would have to involve a coach or train to central London, then a train (from Euston) or take a coach to Milton Keynes (from Victoria Coach Station). Alternatively, to reach Heathrow you can take a train to Watford Junction (30-40 mins) from MK Central, and catch the Virgin RailAir Bus link to Heathrow (about 1 hr) which leaves every half hour during the day. You can also catch a connecting train from Watford to Gatwick Airport (hourly). The MK Coach station also have National Express Buses that service Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted (regularity varies but usually hourly during the day for all except Stansted which is every 2 hours).
• *There is an aerodrome at Cranfield (10 km from CMK).

• By Water: the Grand Union Canal (London/Birmingham) provides a major axis in the design of Milton Keynes.

External links

• [Official website for Milton Keynes and North Bucks, in association with Milton Keynes Council]
• [Unofficial site run by Milton Keynes' local newspaper the Citizen. Covers local news and sport]
• [City Discovery Centre]
• [General facts and figures about Milton Keynes from official council site.]
• ["What's on" and current affairs from council portal site.]
• [The Open Guide to Milton Keynes - an online community guide that anyone can contribute to]
• [Milton Keynes Heritage Association - including archeological links]
• [Milton Keynes Council]
• [Milton Keynes] at the Open Directory Project
• [General facts and figures about Milton Keynes]
• [Pictures of Milton Keynes]
• [This is Milton Keynes]
• [Milton Keynes Peace Pagoda, Temple, Medicine Wheel, and Maze]

• [Milton Keynes Freecycle™ Group - Don't bin it - Freecycle™ it!]

Footnotes

Note 1:

• Pronunciation varies according to the speaker. The Received Pronunciation of Milton Keynes is [ˌmɪltənˈkiːnz], of Shenley is [ˈʃɛnlɪ], of Loughton is [ˈlaʊtən], of Woughton is [ˈwʌftən], and of Broughton is [ˈbrəʊtən]. Note how there is an example of each of the three phones in English for "ough".
• For the origins of the name "Milton Keynes", see article Milton Keynes Village (the original Milton Keynes).boo

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