Little Horwood 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 Buckinghamshire, England, within the

Buckinghamshire Council Buckinghamshire Council is a unitary local authority in England, the area of which constitutes most of the ceremonial county of Buckinghamshire. It was created in April 2020 from the areas that were previously administered by Buckinghamshire Cou ...

unitary authority area. The village is about four miles east-south-east of Buckingham and two miles north-east 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 ...

Heritage

The village

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 ...

Horwood derives 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 "dirty or muddy wood". The '' Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' of 792 records the village as ''Horwudu''. The Church of England parish church of Saint Nicholas has a Perpendicular Gothic

belltower A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell tower ...

built of large blocks of ashlar. The remainder of the church externally dates from the restoration of 1889 by

James Piers St Aubyn James Piers St Aubyn (6 April 1815 – 8 May 1895), often referred to as J P St Aubyn, was an English architect of the Victorian era, known for his church architecture and confident restorations. Early life St Aubyn was born at Powick Vicara ...

. whose works as an architect is not always viewed kindly today. His Victorian Gothicisation of many churches and houses has been decried in terms ranging from

vandalism Vandalism is the action involving deliberate destruction of or damage to public or private property. The term includes property damage, such as graffiti and defacement directed towards any property without permission of the owner. The term ...

to ruthless. Little Horwood church was lucky, as the interior survived relatively unscathed, as did the early 16th-century wall paintings depicting the

seven deadly sins The seven deadly sins, also known as the capital vices or cardinal sins, is a grouping and classification of vices within Christian teachings. Although they are not directly mentioned in the Bible, there are parallels with the seven things ...

, the Jacobean pulpit and the

Decorated Gothic English Gothic is an architectural style that flourished from the late 12th until the mid-17th century. The style was most prominently used in the construction of cathedrals and churches. Gothic architecture's defining features are pointed ar ...

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ov ...

arch. The Tower has a ring of five bells, with a tenor of 9cwt 2qtrs 22lbs, tuned to the note of G. The manor of Little Horwood anciently belonged to the

abbot Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the male head of a monastery in various Western religious traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not the head of a monastery. The ...

and

convent A convent is a community of monks, nuns, religious brothers or, sisters or priests. Alternatively, ''convent'' means the building used by the community. The word is particularly used in the Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and the Anglic ...

of St Albans, but was seized by

the Crown The Crown is the state in all its aspects within the jurisprudence of the Commonwealth realms and their subdivisions (such as the Crown Dependencies, overseas territories, provinces, or states). Legally ill-defined, the term has different ...

with the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the mid-16th century. It was later sold to George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, who remodelled a

manor house A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were held the lord's manorial courts, communal meals w ...

that has since been demolished. One mile south-east of the village is Horwood House. The Grade II listed Little Horwood Manor is a comparatively modern house, designed by A. S. G. Butler in 1938 for the industrialist George Gee. Located between the village and nearby Great Horwood is RAF Little Horwood, a

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

airfield was constructed in 1940, and was operational from 1942 to 1946.

Transport

Little Horwood has an occasional daytime, weekday bus link to Milton Keynes.Retrieved 2 April 2020.
/ref> The nearest railway station is at (8½ miles/14 km).

Notable person

* Percy Thrower (1913–1988), television gardening presenter, was born at Horwood House, half a mile from the village, son of the head gardener.

References

External links

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