Simpson is a village in

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 ...

, England. It was one of the villages of historic Buckinghamshire that was included in the "New City" in 1967. It is located south of the centre, just north of

Fenny Stratford Fenny Stratford is a constituent town of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England and in the Civil Parish of Bletchley and Fenny Stratford. Originally an independent town, it was included in the Milton Keynes " designated area" in 1967. From 1895 ...

. Simpson is now part of the civil parish of Simpson and Ashland, which also includes Ashland and West Ashland.

History

The village name is derived from

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 settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

, and means 'Sigewine's farm or settlement'. It 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 manusc ...

of 1086 as ''Siwinestone''. In the mid 19th century the village was described as "in appearance, one of the most wretched of many miserable villages in the county". According to Sheahan, until about 1830 "during the wintertime, the main road ondonNorthamptonwas generally impassable, without wading through water three feet deep, for a distance of about 200 yards"; he goes on to state that "chiefly through the exertions of Mr. C. Warren, the road has been raised by 3 and a half feet". Charles Warren was the owner of Simpson House and was a substantial landowner and contractor. It would have been in his interest to alleviate flooding in the village, although there is no other documentary evidence that he was directly involved in the improvement works. Simpson was an ancient parish, which included part of

. It became a

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 ...

in 1866, but in 1934 the civil parish was abolished and absorbed by Bletchley Urban District, which itself was abolished in 1974 to become part of the Milton Keynes District.

Ecumenical Church of St Thomas the Apostle

The church building dates from the early fourteenth century. By 1847, Simpson, or Sympson, like other ecclesiastical parishes in Buckinghamshire, had been transferred to the Diocese of Oxford. St Thomas is one of the five churches in the Woughton Ecumenical Partnership, which was established in 1977. Among the historical features of the church is a

hagioscope A hagioscope (from Gr. ''άγιος'', holy, and ''σκοπεῖν'', to see) or squint is an architectural term denoting a small splayed opening or tunnel at seated eye-level, through an internal masonry dividing wall of a church in an obliq ...

, or leper-squint.

Education

There is one school currently in Simpson: Charles Warren Academy, a primary school for children aged 4-11 years. The current headteacher is Jo Goldsmith. It was previously known as Simpson County Combined School. Walnuts School, a school for pupils with special educational needs used to be located at Simpson, but it is now moved to Hazeley, the west corner of Milton Keynes.

References

{{authority control Villages in Buckinghamshire Areas of Milton Keynes Former civil parishes in Buckinghamshire