Lillingstone Lovell 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 ...
in north
Buckinghamshire, England. It is located around north of
Buckingham and west of
Milton Keynes, and around south of
Towcester
Towcester ( ) is an affluent market town in Northamptonshire, England. It currently lies in West Northamptonshire but was the former administrative headquarters of the South Northamptonshire district council.
Towcester is one of the olde ...
in the neighbouring county of
Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by
two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It is ...
.
Silverstone Circuit is located just over north-west of Lillingstone Lovell.
The parish adjoins that of
Lillingstone Dayrell with Luffield Abbey. The
toponym
Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of '' toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage and types. Toponym is the general term for a proper name of ...
"Lillingstone" is derived from the
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 ...
for "Lytel's boundary stone", referring to the proximity of both places to the Northamptonshire boundary. At the time of 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 ...
in 1086 both settlements were recorded jointly as ''Lillingestan'', though at that time there were already two
manors owned respectively by the Dayrell and Lovell families. During the 13th century Lillingstone Lovell was known as ''Lillingstone Magna'' while Lillingstone Dayrell was recorded as ''Lillingstone Parva''; this is believed to refer more to administrative ascendancy rather than territorial size. The adoption of the "Lovell" name came later, probably in reference to the
lordship of the manor by the Lovell family line which died out in the early 14th century.
Unlike its neighbour, Lillingstone Lovell was a detached portion of
Oxfordshire under the control of the royal manor of
Kirtlington
Kirtlington is a village and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in Oxfordshire about west of Bicester. The parish includes the Hamlet (place), hamlet of Northbrook. The United Kingdom Census 2011, 2011 Census recorded the parish's populat ...
, valued for its woodland and hunting being part of the ancient
Whittlewood Forest
Whittlewood Forest is a former medieval hunting forest east of Silverstone in Northamptonshire in England. It is managed by the Forestry England. There are tracts of ancient woodland within it and old ditches can be found at the edges of severa ...
. It was
transferred to Buckinghamshire under the
Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844
The Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844 (7 & 8 Vict. c. 61), which came into effect on 20 October 1844, was an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom which eliminated many outliers or exclaves of counties in England and Wales for civil purposes. ...
.
The central part of the village, focussed on the church, Main Street and Brookside, was designated as a
Conservation Area in 1989.
Church
The
Church of England parish church of the
Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
The Assumption of Mary is one of the four Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church. Pope Pius XII defined it in 1950 in his apostolic constitution ''Munificentissimus Deus'' as follows:
We proclaim and define it to be a dogma revealed by Go ...
is believed to date from the 13th century but was rebuilt in the 14th century. By the middle part of the 18th century it had fallen into disrepair and was repaired and refurbished around 1777 retaining the original medieval tower. It is a Grade I
listed building
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
.
References
Further reading
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External links
North Buckingham ParishBritish History Online: Lillingstone Lovell
{{authority control
Civil parishes in Buckinghamshire
Villages in Buckinghamshire