Whaddon is a village and also 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 authorit ...

within 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-e ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

. It is situated just outside of

Bletchley Bletchley is a constituent town of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. It is situated in the south-west of Milton Keynes, and is split between the civil parishes of Bletchley and Fenny Stratford and West Bletchley. Bletchley is best know ...

, a constituent town of

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 ...

. The village name is

Anglo Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo-Saxons happened wi ...

in origin, and means 'hill where wheat is grown'. The village is referred to several times in the ''

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' is a collection of annals in Old English, chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the ''Chronicle'' was created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of A ...

'' generally in the form of ''Hwætædun''. The village is at the centre of the ancient Whaddon Chase, the site for many centuries of royal hunting lands. Whaddon Chase is designated an area of 'Special Landscape Interest'. Whaddon Church of England School is a mixed

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Brit ...

primary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary e ...

. It is a voluntary controlled school, which takes children from the age of four through to the age of eight. The school has approximately 50 pupils. Richard Cox (ca.1500 – 1581), an English clergyman, who was

Dean of Westminster The Dean of Westminster is the head of the chapter at Westminster Abbey. Due to the Abbey's status as a Royal Peculiar, the dean answers directly to the British monarch (not to the Bishop of London as ordinary, nor to the Archbishop of Canterbu ...

and

Bishop of Ely The Bishop of Ely is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Ely in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese roughly covers the county of Cambridgeshire (with the exception of the Soke of Peterborough), together with a section of nor ...

, was born at Whaddon.

Whaddon Hall Whaddon Hall is a country house in Whaddon, Buckinghamshire. It is a Grade II listed building. History The first manor house was built on the site in the 11th century. The present house was built in 1820, replacing a house which was demolished ...

, the village manor, was once home to the Selby family (also known as Selby-Lowndes), whose ancestor

William Lowndes (1652–1724) William Lowndes (1 November 1652 – 20 January 1724) was an English Whigs (British political party), Whig politician who sat in the House of Commons of England, English and House of Commons of Great Britain, British House of Commons from 1695 t ...

built the larger and grander

Winslow Hall Winslow Hall is a country house, now in the centre of the small town of Winslow, Buckinghamshire, England. Built in 1700, it was sited in the centre of the town, with a public front facing the highway and a garden front that still commanded in ...

. Both mansions are still private houses. During the

Second World War 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 opposi ...

Whaddon Hall served as headquarters of Section VIII (Communications) of MI6, as an outpost of

Bletchley Park Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes (Buckinghamshire) that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. The mansion was constructed during the years following ...

References

External links

{{authority control Villages in Buckinghamshire Civil parishes in Buckinghamshire