''For the municipality in Quebec, see Adstock, Quebec'' Adstock is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

about northwest of

Winslow Winslow may refer to: Places United Kingdom * Winslow, Buckinghamshire, England, a market town and civil parish * Winslow Rural District, Buckinghamshire, a rural district from 1894 to 1974 United States and Canada * Rural Municipality of Winslo ...

and southeast of Buckingham in the

Aylesbury Vale The Aylesbury Vale (or Vale of Aylesbury) is a geographical region in Buckinghamshire, England, which is bounded by the Borough of Milton Keynes and South Northamptonshire to the north, Central Bedfordshire and the Borough of Dacorum (Hertford ...

district of Buckinghamshire. The 2001 Census recorded a parish population of 415 reducing to 363 at the 2011 Census. There are remains of a Roman road in the village. In the divisions of England that took place between AD 613 and 1017, Buckinghamshire was divided into eight hundreds. The manor of Adstock originally formed part of the Votesdune Hundred, then merged into the Ashendon Hundred and was finally absorbed into the

Buckingham Hundred Buckingham Hundred was a hundred in the ceremonial county of Buckinghamshire, England. It was situated in the north west of the county and forming the boundary with the counties of Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire. There was also a small detac ...

. At that time it was surrounded by the Bernwood, one of the most important Royal Forests. At the end of the 10th century, Adstock formed a portion of the Lands of Godwine, Earl of Kent and his second wife

Gytha Thorkelsdóttir Gytha Thorkelsdóttir ( ang, Gȳða Þorkelsdōttir, 997 – c. 1069), also called Githa, was a Danish noblewoman. She was the wife of Godwin, Earl of Wessex and the mother of King Harold Godwinson and of Edith of Wessex, who was the queen con ...

. After the Norman conquest of England, its name was recorded in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manus ...

of 1086 as ''Edestoche'' which is

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...

and means ''Eadda's Farm''. Nearby Addington was named after the same person. In the mid to late 11th century the manor of Adstock was given by

William the Conqueror William I; ang, WillelmI (Bates ''William the Conqueror'' p. 33– 9 September 1087), usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes William the Bastard, was the first House of Normandy, Norman List of English monarchs#House of Norman ...

to his illegitimate son

William Peverel William Peverel († 28. January 1114), Latinised to Gulielmus Piperellus), was a Norman knight granted lands in England following the Norman Conquest. Origins Little is known of the origin of the William Peverel the Elder. Of his immediate f ...

, who was listed as its owner in 1086. This suggests that the manor was of some value, or that its previous owner was of some prominence in Anglo Saxon society. The village received a charter to establish itself as a town briefly in 1665 so that a market could be held there. This was due to the majority of the people from the two local towns of

and Buckingham being infected with bubonic plague. The charter was removed, however, in 1685 and Adstock was reinstated as a village rather than a town. The parish church, which dates from the 12th century, is dedicated to St Cecilia. The roof is dated 1597, and the church underwent further major restoration during the

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...

. There are two bells (the lightest of which dates back from about 1440) in the church and one Sanctus Adstock had an outstation from the

Bletchley Park Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes ( Buckinghamshire) that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. The mansion was constructed during the years followin ...

codebreaking establishment, where some of the

Bombe The bombe () was an electro-mechanical device used by British cryptologists to help decipher German Enigma-machine-encrypted secret messages during World War II. The US Navy and US Army later produced their own machines to the same functi ...

s used to decode German

Enigma Enigma may refer to: *Riddle, someone or something that is mysterious or puzzling Biology *ENIGMA, a class of gene in the LIM domain Computing and technology * Enigma (company), a New York-based data-technology startup * Enigma machine, a family ...

messages in World War Two were located.

References

External links

* * {{authority control Villages in Buckinghamshire Civil parishes in Buckinghamshire