Stewkley
St Michael & All Angels parish church
Stewkley is located in Buckinghamshire
Stewkley
Stewkley
Location within Buckinghamshire
Population1,840 (2011 Census)[1]
OS grid referenceSP853261
Civil parish
  • Stewkley
Unitary authority
Ceremonial county
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townLeighton Buzzard
Postcode districtLU7
Dialling code01525
PoliceThames Valley
FireBuckinghamshire
AmbulanceSouth Central
UK Parliament
WebsiteStewkley Parish Council

Stewkley is a village and civil parish in the Buckinghamshire district of the ceremonial county of Buckinghamshire, England. The village is about 5 miles (8 km) east of Winslow and about 4 miles (6 km) west of Leighton Buzzard. The civil parish includes the hamlets of North End and Stewkley Dean.

The toponym Stewkley is derived from the Old English for woodland clearing with tree stumps. The Domesday Book of 1086 records it as Stiuclai.

History

The principal manor in Stewkley was once held by the son of Geoffrey Chaucer, who was an occasional visitor to the village. The Church of England parish church of St Michael and All Angels is one of the least-altered of England's 6,000 Norman churches. There is a Methodist chapel in High Street South. St Michael's Church of England Combined School teaches children aged 4–11.

Stewkley has one of, if not, the longest village high streets in Britain at 2 miles long,[2] a title also claimed by Combe Martin in Devon, whose 1.5 mile (previously thought to be 2 miles) long high street is not as continuously populated as Stewkley's high street. Southeast of the village is Aylesbury Vale Golf Club.

In World War 2, the village was a popular destination for personnel serving at nearby RAF Wing.

Campaign against London's third airport

In 1968 the Roskill Commission was charged with looking into finding a site for London's third airport. The report was published in 1970, with the proposal that Stewkley would be destroyed along with some other nearby villages. However two local residents, Desmond Fennell and Bill Manning, set up the Wing Airport Resistance Association (WARA), which successfully campaigned against the proposal.[3] A Monument, known as the Airport Monument and Spinney was erected in Stewkley to mark the successful campaign.[4]

Notable people

References

  1. ↑ "Area: Stewkley (Parish), Key Figures for 2011 Census: Key Statistics". Neighbourhood Statistics. Office for National Statistics. Retrieved 3 February 2013.
  2. ↑ Aylesbury Vale (August 2021). "Stewkley Parish Neighbourhood Plan 2013 - 2033" (PDF). Aylesbury Vale. Retrieved 15 November 2021.
  3. ↑ "DVD Tells the Story of Campaign That Made National Headlines". The Stewkley Film Archive. Retrieved 30 October 2014.
  4. ↑ "Stewkley Parish Council Website". Stewkley Parish Council.
  5. ↑ "Alastair Cook: Recipe For Success". Yahoo!. 31 December 2011.

Further reading

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