Great Woolstone and Little Woolstone are two historic villages in modern

Milton Keynes Milton Keynes ( ) is a city and the largest settlement in Buckinghamshire, England, about north-west of London. At the 2021 Census, the population of its urban area was over . The River Great Ouse forms its northern boundary; a tributary ...

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-ea ...

that are now called jointly Woolstone or The Woolstones and form the heart of a new district of that name, in the Campbell Park civil parish. At the 2011 Census, the population of the district was included in the figure for the

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 authority ...

and not reported separately.

History

The name 'Woolstone' is an

Old English language 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 cen ...

word, and means 'Wulfsige's farm'. 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 manusc ...

of 1086, Great Woolstone was recorded as ''Ulsiestone''. and Little Woolstone as ''Wlsiestone''. Little Woolstone was

enclosed Enclosure or Inclosure is a term, used in English landownership, that refers to the appropriation of "waste" or "common land" enclosing it and by doing so depriving commoners of their rights of access and privilege. Agreements to enclose land ...

by Act of Parliament in 1791, and Great Woolstone in 1796. Until shortly after the turn of the 19th century, Little Woolstone was named Parva Woolstone. The area is now collectively known simply as "Woolstone" or "The Woolstones". The land between the two villages is now occupied by the village cricket green. They are both linear villages, being hemmed in by and along the north–south line of both the

River Ouzel The River Ouzel , also known as the River Lovat, is a river in England, and a tributary of the River Great Ouse. It rises in the Chiltern Hills and flows north to join the Ouse at Newport Pagnell. It is usually called the ''River Ouzel'', e ...

(to the east of the villages) and of the

Grand Union Canal The Grand Union Canal in England is part of the British canal system. It is the principal navigable waterway between London and the Midlands. Starting in London, one arm runs to Leicester and another ends in Birmingham, with the latter st ...

to the west. They form part of a chain of three villages along this line, the next about a mile further south being

Woughton-on-the-Green Old Woughton ( ) is a district and civil parish in south central Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. The parish was established in April 2012 by the division into two parts of Woughton parish. The original (undivided) civil parish was its ...

The Woolstones today

Today, Great Woolstone still has its own village pub, the thatched-roof "Cross Keys", which can trace its history back to 1560. Little Woolstone is the larger of the two Woolstones, having benefited from the building of the canal. Its village pub, "The Barge Inn", dates from this time, being opened to meet the needs of the canal labourers, but is now mainly a restaurant. The

Church of England parish church A parish church in the Church of England is the church which acts as the religious centre for the people within each Church of England parish (the smallest and most basic Church of England administrative unit; since the 19th century sometimes ca ...

of the Holy Trinity in Little Woolstone now serves both villages; the church in Great Woolstone closed in the 1970s and has served various purposes since then including being used as a

music rehearsal room A music rehearsal space is a room or number of rooms dedicated to music-making. A professionally soundproofed practice room(s) is an acoustic environment defined by its purpose and layout, designed to keep sound inside and unwanted sound out. Spac ...

. The old village centre seems only a little changed from its description in ''Buckinghamshire Footpaths'' in 1949:

People

*Dorothy Wyndlow Pattison ("

Sister Dora Dorothy Wyndlow Pattison, better known as Sister Dora (16 January 1832 – 24 December 1878), was a 19th-century Anglican nun and nurse who worked in Walsall, Staffordshire. Life Dorothy Wyndlow Pattison was born in Hauxwell, North Ridin ...

") was village schoolmistress in the parish of Little Woolston for three years from 1861; Pattison Lane, the main road through Woolstone, is named after her.

References

External links

* {{authority control Villages in Buckinghamshire Areas of Milton Keynes