Westcott 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 authority ...

in the unitary authority area of

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 ...

, England, about west of

Waddesdon Waddesdon is a village in Buckinghamshire, England, west-north-west of Aylesbury on the A41 road. The village also includes the hamlets of Eythrope and Wormstone, Waddesdon was an agricultural settlement with milling, silk weaving and lace maki ...

. 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 ...

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 settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

for "west cottage". 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 St Mary the Virgin was designed by the Oxford Diocesan architect

G.E. Street George Edmund Street (20 June 1824 – 18 December 1881), also known as G. E. Street, was an English architect, born at Woodford, London, Woodford in Essex. Stylistically, Street was a leading practitioner of the Gothic Revival architecture, Vi ...

and built in 1867. It is a

Grade II* 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 ...

. In the 20th century Westcott was the site of the

Rocket Propulsion Establishment The Rocket Propulsion Establishment at Westcott, Buckinghamshire on the site of the former RAF Westcott has made a number of notable contributions in the field of rocket propulsion, including input on the rocket design for the Blue Streak missi ...

, which was on the former

RAF Westcott RAF Westcott is a former Royal Air Force station located near Westcott in Buckinghamshire, England. The site fully opened in September 1942 and was the base of No.11 Operational Training Unit (OTU) flying the Vickers Wellington medium bomber u ...

airfield An aerodrome (Commonwealth English) or airdrome (American English) is a location from which aircraft flight operations take place, regardless of whether they involve air cargo, passengers, or neither, and regardless of whether it is for publ ...

to the west of the main village. This has since been closed down, and the area is called the Westcott Venture Park.

BAE Systems BAE Systems plc (BAE) is a British multinational arms, security, and aerospace company based in London, England. It is the largest defence contractor in Europe, and ranked the seventh-largest in the world based on applicable 2021 revenues. ...

maintains a presence on the site (BAE Systems Environmental) which advises on the decommissioning of military sites. G.E. Street also designed the parish school. It is now Westcott Church of England School, a mixed primary school.Westcott School Church of England
/ref> In 2012 it gained permission to expand the age range of its children, taking them from 4–11 years old, with an integrated pre-school nursery that caters to children of 3 for half days.

References

Sources and further reading

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External links

{{authority control Civil parishes in Buckinghamshire Villages in Buckinghamshire