Stansted Mountfitchet
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Stansted Mountfitchet is a village and civil parish in the county of Essex, England, near the Hertfordshire border, 30 miles north of London. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 5,533.
Stansted was a Saxon settlement (the name means 'stony place' in Saxon) and pre-dates the Norman invasion of England, although it wasn't until this invasion that it inherited the suffix Mountfitchet, from the Norman baron who settled there. A small remnant of his castle remains, around which a reconstruction of an early Norman castle has been built. Believed to have been fortified originally in the Iron Age, and subsequently by the Romans and Vikings, construction of the Norman castle began in 1066.
The village also boasts the largest toy museum in the world, adjacent to the castle.
During the Second World War, the US Air Force constructed an airfield near the village. After the war ended, it was subsequently taken over by the Government and developed as a commercial airport. Today, Stansted Airport is accessible by road from Junction 8 of the M11 motorway, near Bishop's Stortford and direct by train from London Liverpool Street.
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