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Slapton, Buckinghamshire

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Slapton Holy Cross Church 02
Slapton Holy Cross Church 02

Slapton is a village and also a civil parish within Aylesbury Vale district in Buckinghamshire, England. It is located between the Grand Union Canal and the boundary with Bedfordshire, about 3 mi (5 km) south of Leighton Buzzard and 3 mi (5 km) west of Edlesborough.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Slapton, Buckinghamshire (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Slapton, Buckinghamshire
Horton Road,

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Wikipedia: Slapton, BuckinghamshireContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 51.8778 ° E -0.6442 °
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Address

Horton Road

Horton Road
LU7 9DB , Slapton
England, United Kingdom
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Slapton Holy Cross Church 02
Slapton Holy Cross Church 02
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Horton, Buckinghamshire
Horton, Buckinghamshire

Horton is a hamlet in the parish of Ivinghoe, in Buckinghamshire, England. It is in the civil parish of Slapton. The name Horton is a common one in England. It derives from Old English horu 'dirt' and tūn 'settlement, farm, estate', presumably meaning 'farm on muddy soil'.Although in the parish of Ivinghoe, the hamlet is nearer to Cheddington with its shops and churches, so that is the main village to which most residents of Horton feel most attached. On the 14 February 1942 a Royal Air Force De Havilland Dragon Rapide (R5927) was operating a training flight out of RAF Yatesbury. The pilots lost control of the aircraft after hitting a balloon cable. The aircraft came down in an area of Horton known as Wiggins Field & caught fire on impact. All six crew & one person in the ground died in the accident.The hamlet of Horton was held after the Norman Conquest by the de Brocas family. The hamlet is very small, but a few new modern houses have been built over the last twenty years, most notably Brocas Way and The Grange. The latter was built in the 1970s as a dower house for Horton Hall. Horton Hall is a large moated farmhouse with 18th-century origins. It is probably on the site of the original manor or hall. It was the home of Norman Shand-Kydd, a charity fund-raiser, and former champion amateur jockey, who bred horses on the adjoining farm. Two 16th-century half-timbered cottages remain in the village. One, still known as King's Head Cottage, used to be an inn. The other, which is older, is a renovated Tudor hall on the outskirts of the hamlet.

Billington, Bedfordshire
Billington, Bedfordshire

Billington is a civil parish in Bedfordshire about 3 miles (4.8 km) south of Leighton Buzzard and not far from the Buckinghamshire border. There are two settlements: Little Billington (a hamlet in the west of the parish) and one that is now called Great Billington (straddling the A4146). At the 2021 census, the parish had a population of 359.The name of the parish is recorded in 1196 as Billendon, and may come from Anglo-Saxon language Billan dūn = "hill of a man named Billa". Another theorized original meaning is "hill with a sharp ridge". The spelling Billyngdon appears in a legal record, dated 1440, where Hugh and Thomas Billyngdon of Billyngdon, Beds, gentlemen, are mentioned.The village is known for its high density of Travellers, who outnumber the settled community. This community live in privately owned, but permitted, sites in the village, three in Little Billington and one between Billington and the nearby village of Stanbridge. The centre of Great Billington is Billington Hill, on top of which is the small parish church. The church was originally a small mediaeval chapel; however, in the late 1860s it was enlarged to a church, and a rectory built next to it to house the first incumbent. This was when Billington was first recorded as a parish in its own right. The bell turret of the church (it has no tower) came to the church secondhand, from the church at nearby Linslade, which was being enlarged at the time. The interior of the church is very simple; a small stained glass window in the west wall commemorates Edward Bradshaw, the first rector. The village once had a common, where the peasants cultivated their own strips of land; the name 'common' still survives as a field name. It was enclosed at the time of the enclosures, and is today part of a local farm. It is traversed by two public footpaths. The village contains some half-timbered thatched cottages, in the area around the summit of the hill, and also some old farmhouses and cottages. One of the thatched cottages on top of the hill has the dubious honour of having featured on countless chocolate boxes and biscuit tins. One of the more attractive houses in the village is Walkers Farm, a brick and timber house dating from the 16th century. Its once-thatched roof is now tiled. During the late 1870s and early 1880 large areas of the village were bought by Arthur Macnamara who built at this time the manor house, and transformed the village into a typical Victorian estate village. The village school, halfway up the hill, was built at this time. It closed in the 1950s. In the early 20th century a point-to-point course was built on the estate, people came from all over England to attend the race meeting held there. Edward VIII when Prince of Wales was a frequent competitor at the races. The races discontinued after World War II.

Great Train Robbery (1963)
Great Train Robbery (1963)

The Great Train Robbery was the robbery of £2.61 million (calculated to present-day value of £58 million), from a Royal Mail train heading from Glasgow to London on the West Coast Main Line in the early hours of 8 August 1963 at Bridego Railway Bridge, Ledburn, near Mentmore in Buckinghamshire, England.After tampering with the lineside signals to bring the train to a halt, a gang of 15, led by Bruce Reynolds, attacked the train. Other gang members included Gordon Goody, Buster Edwards, Charlie Wilson, Roy James, John Daly, Jimmy White, Ronnie Biggs, Tommy Wisbey, Jim Hussey, Bob Welch and Roger Cordrey, as well as three men known only as numbers "1", "2" and "3"; two were later identified as Harry Smith and Danny Pembroke. A 16th man, an unnamed retired train driver, was also present.With careful planning based on inside information from an individual known as "The Ulsterman", whose real identity has never been established, the robbers escaped with over £2.61 million. The bulk of the stolen money has never been recovered. The gang did not use any firearms, though Jack Mills, the train driver, was beaten over the head with a metal bar and suffered serious head injuries. After his partial recovery, Mills returned to work doing light duties. He retired in 1967 and died in 1970 due to an unrelated illness. Mills never overcame the trauma of the robbery. After the robbery, the gang hid at Leatherslade Farm. The police found this hideout, and incriminating evidence, a monopoly board with fingerprints, led to the eventual arrest and conviction of most of the gang. The ringleaders were sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Grove, Buckinghamshire
Grove, Buckinghamshire

Grove is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Slapton, Buckinghamshire, England. It is on the border with Bedfordshire, just to the north of Mentmore. It is the size of some hamlets, but it is distinct as a village because it had its own parish church. The place name is fairly self-explanatory, as it means 'grove', or a copse of trees. It was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Grova, and was considered a separate village even then. In 1961 the parish had a population of 12. On 1 April 1982 the parish was abolished and merged with Slapton.In medieval times there was an abbey or priory of nuns in the parish, founded in 1169 by Henry II and attached to Fontevrault Abbey in France. Following the wars with France it was given to the dean and Canons of Windsor. The remains of this abbey were fully excavated in the late 1960s just before they were lost forever in connection with the sand-quarrying industry of Leighton Buzzard. It has been suggested that before this Grove may once have been an important place of worship in even more ancient times, thus leading to its establishment as a separate parish. The parish church was dedicated to St. Michael, the dragon slayer. There was also in addition to the priory, a house of Cistercian monks, subordinate to Woburn Abbey. Immediately adjoining Grove was the lost hamlet known as South Waddon, today this remains only as the name of a nearby farm; however earth workings in the area suggest a substantial settlement if not fortifications. Grove Church was converted into a small private house in the late 1970s. The area that has become the sitting room of the house has the macabre feature of a Medieval human skeleton buried under a glass panel. The skull is surrounded in turn by the skeletons of small birds, thought to have been put there to ward off evil spirits. Part of the churchyard containing the newest graves was retained by the church authorities, following their controversial decision to sell the church. It remains today but is closed for further burials. A large farmhouse dominating the village, was during the early 1960s turned into a Victorian gothic mansion complete with clock tower when it was the property of the Shand-Kydd family. The house overlooks and indeed is a landmark for the boats on The Grand Union Canal which actually flows through the centre of the village. A former lock-keeper's cottage at nearby Grove Lock was in 2001 converted into a public house and restaurant.

Cheddington railway station
Cheddington railway station

Cheddington railway station serves the village of Cheddington, in Buckinghamshire, England, and the surrounding villages, including Ivinghoe and Mentmore. The station is 36 miles 8 chains (36.10 mi; 58.10 km) north west of London Euston on the West Coast Main Line. It is operated by London Northwestern Railway, which also provides all services. The station has four platforms, each with 12 carriage capacity, but only platforms 3 and 4 are used regularly and platforms 1 and 2 are used only during engineering works and disruption. Platforms 2 and 3 form a centre island. The main station buildings are located on Platform 1 adjacent to the car park. Access to the other platforms is gained by a footbridge. The ticket office closed on 28 March 2013 and the station is now unstaffed. Although starting in December 2017 there is a security guard on the station around the clock, the ticket building is still closed.Cheddington was formerly a junction for the London & North Western Railway's branch line to Aylesbury High Street. This branch terminated in the east of Aylesbury and made no connection to the GCR/Metropolitan Railway station in that town. The branch closed to passengers in 1953 but with freight services continuing until 1964. The trackless edge of the Aylesbury branch platform is still in evidence at Cheddington and part of the old track bed of the branch is now used as the station's approach road. Just over 1.2 miles (2 km) north of this station, on the stretch of line between Cheddington and Leighton Buzzard, is Bridego Bridge, the scene of the Great Train Robbery of 1963.