Slapton 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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (, abbreviated ''Bucks'') is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-east, Hertfordshir ...

, England. It is located between the

Grand Union Canal The Grand Union Canal in England is part of the Canals of the United Kingdom, British canal system. It is the principal navigable waterway between London and the Midlands. Starting in London, one arm runs to Leicester and another to Birmi ...

and the boundary with

Bedfordshire Bedfordshire (; abbreviated ''Beds'') is a Ceremonial County, ceremonial county in the East of England. It is bordered by Northamptonshire to the north, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Hertfordshire to the south and the south-east, and Buckin ...

, about south of

Leighton Buzzard Leighton Buzzard ( ) is a market town in Bedfordshire, England, in the southwest of the county and close to the Buckinghamshire border. It lies between Aylesbury, Tring, Luton/ Dunstable and Milton Keynes, near the Chiltern Hills. It is nor ...

and west of

Edlesborough Edlesborough is a village and civil parish in the Aylesbury Vale district of Buckinghamshire, England. Edlesborough is also next to the village of Eaton Bray just over the county boundary in Bedfordshire, about west-south-west of Dunstab ...

Hamlets

Towards the edge of the parish near

Horton Horton may refer to: Places Antarctica * Horton Glacier, Adelaide Island, Antarctica * Horton Ledge, Queen Elizabeth Land, Antarctica Australia * Horton, Queensland, a town and locality in the Bundaberg Region * Horton River (Australia), ...

Ivinghoe Ivinghoe is a town and civil parish in east Buckinghamshire, England, close to the borders with Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire. It is northwest of London, north of Tring and south of Leighton Buzzard, close to the village of Pitstone. Et ...

is the hamlet of Horton Wharf. The village of Grove is also within the boundary of Slapton parish.

History

The village name is

Anglo Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to Ge ...

in origin, and means "farm by a slippery place". This village 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 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

of 1086 as ''Slapetone''. The manor of Slapton once belonged to a

convent A convent is an enclosed community of monks, nuns, friars or religious sisters. Alternatively, ''convent'' means the building used by the community. The term is particularly used in the Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and the Anglican ...

Barking Barking may refer to: Places * Barking, London, a town in East London, England ** London Borough of Barking, 1965–1980 ** Municipal Borough of Barking, 1931–1965 ** Barking (UK Parliament constituency) ** Barking (electoral division), Greater ...

Essex Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...

, though it was seized by

the Crown The Crown is a political concept used in Commonwealth realms. Depending on the context used, it generally refers to the entirety of the State (polity), state (or in federal realms, the relevant level of government in that state), the executive ...

in the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1547. The manor was for some time after that the property of the Earl of Bridgwater. The village hall was built and given to the village by the Griffin family of Bury Farm in memory of Elizabeth Griffin in the 1950s. Until recently, the Griffin family continued to own Bury Farm, and had the unusual distinction of farming

buffalo Buffalo most commonly refers to: * True buffalo or Bubalina, a subtribe of wild cattle, including most "Old World" buffalo, such as water buffalo * Bison, a genus of wild cattle, including the American buffalo * Buffalo, New York, a city in the n ...

in the village. Slapton once had a splendid 18th century

rectory A clergy house is the residence, or former residence, of one or more priests or ministers of a given religion, serving as both a home and a base for the occupant's ministry. Residences of this type can have a variety of names, such as manse, p ...

of classical design. This was demolished in the 1960s and a development of four-bedroom

terraced A terrace in agriculture is a flat surface that has been cut into hills or mountains to provide areas for the cultivation for crops, as a method of more effective farming. Terrace agriculture or cultivation is when these platforms are created s ...

and

semi-detached A semi-detached house (often abbreviated to semi) is a single-family Duplex (building), duplex dwelling that shares one common party wall, wall with its neighbour. The name distinguishes this style of construction from detached houses, with no sh ...

houses in the style of that era was built on its site. There was a farm (Church Farm) immediately next to the church until the mid-1970s; this property had been in the ownership of one family since 1086, having originally been given to the de Tournais by

William the Conqueror William the Conqueror (Bates ''William the Conqueror'' p. 33– 9 September 1087), sometimes called William the Bastard, was the first Norman king of England (as William I), reigning from 1066 until his death. A descendant of Rollo, he was D ...

. The family survived in Slapton, spelling their name in various ways, until the death of

William Turney William is a masculine given name of Germanic origin. It became popular in England after the Norman conquest in 1066,All Things William"Meaning & Origin of the Name"/ref> and remained so throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern era. It is ...

around 1975. He was childless, so the farm was sold for the first time in 900 years. The new owners demolished the farmhouse and buildings, and on the site built a development of houses and flats known as Tournay Court.

Current

Today Slapton contains few old buildings of any architectural merit. The church, dedicated to the Holy Cross, is of plain design with tower,

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

and

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

. The chancel is probably the oldest part of the building. The churchyard contains many memorials to the Turney and Buckmaster families.

Local history and interest

The Great Train Robbery took place a
Bridego Railway Bridge
(No. 127) on 8 August 1963, which is situated one mile (as the crow flies) from Slapton, heading towards

Ledburn Ledburn is a hamlet (place), hamlet in the parish of Mentmore, in Buckinghamshire, England. History The name Ledburn is Old English language, Anglo Saxon in origin, and means "stream with a conduit". In Manorialism, manorial records of 1212 i ...

Notable people

Frank Bruno Franklin Roy Bruno (born 16 November 1961) is a British former professional boxer who competed from 1982 to 1996. He held the World Boxing Council (WBC) heavyweight title from 1995 to 1996. At regional level, he held the European heavyweight ...

lives on the outskirts of the village.

References

External links

Slapton news letter

Slapton AllotmentsBook Of Trinity - A.J. RyderParanormal Database - Buckinghamshire
{{Authority control Villages in Buckinghamshire Civil parishes in Buckinghamshire