Stony Stratford is 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 ...

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. Historically it was a market town on the important route from London to Chester (

Watling Street Watling Street is a historic route in England that crosses the River Thames at London and which was used in Classical Antiquity, Late Antiquity, and throughout the Middle Ages. It was used by the ancient Britons and paved as one of the main R ...

, now the A5). It is also the name of 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 ...

with a

town council A town council, city council or municipal council is a form of local government for small municipalities. Usage of the term varies under different jurisdictions. Republic of Ireland Town Councils in the Republic of Ireland were the second ti ...

within the

City of Milton Keynes The City of Milton Keynes is a unitary authority area with both borough and city status, in Buckinghamshire. It is the northernmost district of the South East England Region. The borough abuts Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire and the remainder o ...

. It is in the north-west corner of the

Milton Keynes urban area The Milton Keynes urban area or Milton Keynes Built-up Area is a designation established by the United Kingdom's Office for National Statistics. Milton Keynes has no statutory boundary: the 1967 designated area only determined the area assi ...

, bordering

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It is ...

and separated from it by the

River Great Ouse The River Great Ouse () is a river in England, the longest of several British rivers called "Ouse". From Syresham in Northamptonshire, the Great Ouse flows through Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk to drain into the Wa ...

History

Since at least

Roman times In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC ...

, there has been a settlement here at the ford of

over the Great Ouse. The town's

market charter A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regular market; this distinguished it from a village or city. In Britain, small rural ...

dates from 1194 and its status as a town from 1215. The town name is

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, 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- ...

in origin, and means "stony ford on a Roman road". The road in this instance is

, which runs through the middle of the town and crosses the River Ouse just outside it (nowadays by bridge). In 1789, at Windmill Field (probably) in the parish of

Old Stratford Old Stratford is a village and wider civil parish in the south of the English county of Northamptonshire. The population of the civil parish (including Passenham) at the 2011 Census was 1,935. The 'Stratford' part of the village name is Anglo-Sax ...

near Stony Stratford, an urn was uncovered which contained three

fibula The fibula or calf bone is a leg bone on the lateral side of the tibia, to which it is connected above and below. It is the smaller of the two bones and, in proportion to its length, the most slender of all the long bones. Its upper extremity is ...

e and two headdresses. Known as the '' Stony Stratford Hoard'', it also contained around thirty fragments of silver plaques which were decorated with images of the

Roman gods The Roman deities most widely known today are those the Romans identified with Greek counterparts (see ''interpretatio graeca''), integrating Greek myths, iconography, and sometimes religious practices into Roman culture, including Latin litera ...

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury (planet), Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Mars (mythology), Roman god of war. Mars is a terr ...

Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...

and

Victory The term victory (from Latin ''victoria'') originally applied to warfare, and denotes success achieved in personal Duel, combat, after military operations in general or, by extension, in any competition. Success in a military campaign constitu ...

. There were also inscriptions to

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but ...

and

Vulcan Vulcan may refer to: Mythology * Vulcan (mythology), the god of fire, volcanoes, metalworking, and the forge in Roman mythology Arts, entertainment and media Film and television * Vulcan (''Star Trek''), name of a fictional race and their home p ...

leading to theories that this was a votive hoard associated with a Roman temple. The hoard is now kept at the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

. There has been a chartered market in Stony Stratford since 1194 (by

charter A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified. It is implicit that the granter retains superiority (or sovereignty), and that the rec ...

of King Richard I).R. H. Britnell, 'The Origins of Stony Stratford', ''Records of Buckinghamshire'', XX (1977), pp. 451–3 (Until the early 1900s, livestock marts were still held in the market square but in more recent times the square has become a car park, apart from a monthly

farmers' market A farmers' market (or farmers market according to the AP stylebook, also farmer's market in the Cambridge Dictionary) is a physical retail marketplace intended to sell foods directly by farmers to consumers. Farmers' markets may be indoors or o ...

in one corner. The weekly market has moved to Timor Court, and of course no longer deals in livestock). Stony Stratford formally became a town when it received

letters patent Letters patent ( la, litterae patentes) ( always in the plural) are a type of legal instrument in the form of a published written order issued by a monarch, president or other head of state, generally granting an office, right, monopoly, titl ...

from King John in 1215. Stony Stratford was the location where, in 1290, an

Eleanor cross The Eleanor crosses were a series of twelve tall and lavishly decorated stone monuments topped with crosses erected in a line down part of the east of England. King Edward I had them built between 1291 and about 1295 in memory of his beloved wi ...

was built in memory of the recently deceased Queen

Eleanor of Castile Eleanor of Castile (1241 – 28 November 1290) was Queen of England as the first wife of Edward I, whom she married as part of a political deal to affirm English sovereignty over Gascony. The marriage was known to be particularly close, and ...

, as her funeral cortège had stopped overnight in the town en route to London. The cross was destroyed during the

English Civil War The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of re ...

. The former ''Rose and Crown Inn'' at Stony Stratford was reputedly where, in 1483, the boy-king

Edward V Edward V (2 November 1470 – mid-1483)R. F. Walker, "Princes in the Tower", in S. H. Steinberg et al, ''A New Dictionary of British History'', St. Martin's Press, New York, 1963, p. 286. was ''de jure'' King of England and Lord of Ireland f ...

stayed the night before he was taken to London (to become one of the

Princes in the Tower The Princes in the Tower refers to the apparent murder in England in the 1480s of the deposed King Edward V of England and Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York. These two brothers were the only sons of King Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville sur ...

) by his uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who soon became

King Richard III Richard III (2 October 145222 August 1485) was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 26 June 1483 until his death in 1485. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty. His defeat and death at the Batt ...

. Edward had been returning from

Ludlow Castle Ludlow Castle is a ruined medieval fortification in the town of the same name in the English county of Shropshire, standing on a promontory overlooking the River Teme. The castle was probably founded by Walter de Lacy after the Norman conque ...

in the

Welsh Marches The Welsh Marches ( cy, Y Mers) is an imprecisely defined area along the border between England and Wales in the United Kingdom. The precise meaning of the term has varied at different periods. The English term Welsh March (in Medieval Latin ...

to London to claim his crown on the death of his father, Edward IV, when he was met in Stony Stratford by his uncle, who later deposed him. The

inn Inns are generally establishments or buildings where travelers can seek lodging, and usually, food and drink. Inns are typically located in the country or along a highway; before the advent of motorized transportation they also provided accommo ...

is now a private house but a plaque on the front wall commemorates the event.

Catherine of Aragon Catherine of Aragon (also spelt as Katherine, ; 16 December 1485 – 7 January 1536) was Queen of England as the first wife of King Henry VIII from their marriage on 11 June 1509 until their annulment on 23 May 1533. She was previously ...

rode from London to address her troops assembling here for the

Battle of Flodden The Battle of Flodden, Flodden Field, or occasionally Branxton, (Brainston Moor) was a battle fought on 9 September 1513 during the War of the League of Cambrai between the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland, resulting in an English ...

, and went on to stay at

Woburn Abbey Woburn Abbey (), occupying the east of the village of Woburn, Bedfordshire, England, is a country house, the family seat of the Duke of Bedford. Although it is still a family home to the current duke, it is open on specified days to visitors, a ...

in September 1513. The town has twice become almost completely consumed by fire, the first time in 1736 and the second in 1742. The only building to escape the second fire was the tower of the

chapel of ease A chapel of ease (or chapel-of-ease) is a church architecture, church building other than the parish church, built within the bounds of a parish for the attendance of those who cannot reach the parish church conveniently. Often a chapel of ea ...

of St Mary Magdalen, now a

scheduled monument In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change. The various pieces of legislation that legally protect heritage assets from damage and d ...

. Since at least the 15th century, Stony Stratford was an important stop on the road to Ireland via

Chester Chester is a cathedral city and the county town of Cheshire, England. It is located on the River Dee, close to the English–Welsh border. With a population of 79,645 in 2011,"2011 Census results: People and Population Profile: Chester Loca ...

, becoming quite rich on the proceeds in the 16th century. In the stage coach era of the 17th and early 18th centuries, it was a major resting place and exchange point with the east–west route with

coaching inn The coaching inn (also coaching house or staging inn) was a vital part of Europe's inland transport infrastructure until the development of the railway, providing a resting point ( layover) for people and horses. The inn served the needs of tra ...

s to accommodate coach travellers. Traffic on

and the consequent wear and tear to it was such as to necessitate England's first

turnpike trust Turnpike trusts were bodies set up by individual Acts of Parliament in the United Kingdom, acts of Parliament, with powers to collect road toll road, tolls for maintaining the principal roads in Kingdom of Great Britain, Britain from the 17th b ...

, from

Hockliffe Hockliffe is a village and civil parish in Bedfordshire on the crossroads of the A5 road which lies upon the course of the Roman road known as Watling Street and the A4012 and B5704 roads. It is about four miles east of Leighton Buzzard. Near ...

to Stony Stratford, in 1707. In the early 19th century, over thirty

mail coach A mail coach is a stagecoach that is used to deliver mail. In Great Britain, Ireland, and Australia, they were built to a General Post Office-approved design operated by an independent contractor to carry long-distance mail for the Post Office. M ...

es and

stagecoach A stagecoach is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by four horses although some versions are draw ...

es a day stopped here. That traffic came to an abrupt end in 1838 when the London to Birmingham Railway (now the

West Coast Main Line The West Coast Main Line (WCML) is one of the most important railway corridors in the United Kingdom, connecting the major cities of London and Glasgow with branches to Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and Edinburgh. It is one of the busiest ...

) was opened at

Wolverton Wolverton is a constituent town of Milton Keynes, England. It is located at the northern edge of Milton Keynes, beside the West Coast Main Line, the Grand Union Canal and the river Great Ouse. It is the administrative seat of Wolverton and Gre ...

– ironically, just three years after the bridge over the Ouse had been rebuilt.

Wolverton railway works Wolverton railway works, known locally as Wolverton Works or just The Works, was established in Wolverton, Buckinghamshire, by the London and Birmingham Railway Company in 1838 at the midpoint of the route from London to Birmingham. The line ...

provided an important source of employment in the town, with the Wolverton and Stony Stratford Tramway being built to serve the workers. With the arrival of the

motor car A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarded as t ...

, the town's position on the original

A5 road A5 Road may refer to: ;Africa * A5 highway (Nigeria), a road connecting Lagos and Ibadan * A5 road (Zimbabwe), a road connecting Harare and Francistown ;Americas * Quebec Autoroute 5, a road in Quebec, Canada * County Route A5 (California) or B ...

made it again an important stopping point for travellers. The 1841 census lists the population as 1,757. Before the creation in 1974 of the (then) District of Milton Keynes (by the

Local Government Act 1972 The Local Government Act 1972 (c. 70) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed local government in England and Wales on 1 April 1974. It was one of the most significant Acts of Parliament to be passed by the Heath Gov ...

), Stony was in

Wolverton Urban District Wolverton Urban District was a local government district in Buckinghamshire, England, from 1920 to 1974, covering the town of Wolverton and its environs, including the town of Stony Stratford. A district covering this area existed from 1894 to ...

Cock and Bull Story

Due to the juxtaposition of two hotels in the centre of town, ''The Cock'' and ''The Bull'' (both originally

s on the main London

turnpike Turnpike often refers to: * A type of gate, another word for a turnstile * In the United States, a toll road Turnpike may also refer to: Roads United Kingdom * A turnpike road, a principal road maintained by a turnpike trust, a body with powers ...

), it is claimed locally that the common phrase ''a

cock and bull story A cock and bull story is a fanciful, unlikely story. The Cock Inn and the Bull Inn, both in Stony Stratford, a town on Watling Street (now a constituent town of Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire), were staging posts for rival coach lines on t ...

'' originated here.

Listed buildings

The parish has one scheduled monument,The tower of the former Church of St Mary Magdalene. nine '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 ...

s, and a further 134 buildings and structures listed at Grade II.

The modern town

Today Stony Stratford is a busy

market town A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regular market; this distinguished it from a village or city. In Britain, small rural ...

. In early June, ''Stony Live'' is a week of cultural events that culminates in ''Folk on the Green'', a free festival of

folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has b ...

folk rock Folk rock is a hybrid music genre that combines the elements of folk and rock music, which arose in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom in the mid-1960s. In the U.S., folk rock emerged from the folk music revival. Performers suc ...

and eclectic taste that takes over Horsefair Green.

Sport and leisure

Football

Stony Stratford Town F.C. are a

Non-League football Non-League football describes football leagues played outside the top leagues of a country. Usually, it describes leagues which are not fully professional. The term is primarily used for football in England, where it is specifically used to de ...

club, founded in 1898 who play at Ostler's Lane.

Cricket

Stony Stratford Cricket Club is an amateur

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

club, officially founded in the 1898, that is based at Ostlers Lane. The club has five senior XI teams that compete on Saturdays in the

Northamptonshire Cricket League The Hevey Building Supplies Northamptonshire Cricket League is the top level of competition for recreational club cricket in Northamptonshire, England, and since 1999 has been a designated ECB Premier League. The league headquarters is based i ...

, two women senior XI teams in the Home Counties Women's Cricket League, a Sunday XI team in the Bedfordshire County Cricket League and an established junior training section that play competitive cricket in the Buckinghamshire CB Junior League.

Tennis

Stony Stratford Lawn

Tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

Club was founded in 1923 and is based at Ostler's Lane. The club have 9 courts of which 7 are floodlit and a new club house. Both Men and Women teams compete in the local Milton Keynes leagues, and Juniors also play in the Aegon Team Tennis League.

Bowls

Stony Stratford

Bowls Bowls, also known as lawn bowls or lawn bowling, is a sport in which the objective is to roll biased balls so that they stop close to a smaller ball called a "jack" or "kitty". It is played on a bowling green, which may be flat (for "flat-gre ...

Club was formed in 1923, and started playing on the present site at Ostler's Lane in 1924. The club compete in the Bletchley and District Bowls League and became league champions in 1994 and 2016.

Croquet

Stony Stratford

Croquet Croquet ( or ; french: croquet) is a sport that involves hitting wooden or plastic balls with a mallet through hoops (often called "wickets" in the United States) embedded in a grass playing court. Its international governing body is the Wor ...

Club play on the Ancell Trust Sports Grounds at Ostler's Lane. The club won the East Anglian Croquet Federation's Handicap League in 2016.

In film

Scenes from the 1987 cult film ''

Withnail and I ''Withnail and I'' is a 1987 British black comedy film written and directed by Bruce Robinson. Loosely based on Robinson's life in London in the late 1960s, the plot follows two unemployed actors, Withnail and "I" (portrayed by Richard E. Gran ...

'' were filmed in Stony Stratford. Cox and Robinsons chemist is the 'Penrith tea rooms' where Withnail demands "the finest wines known to humanity." The Crown pub became the 'King Henry pub' in the film. Both premises are on Market Square.

Historic parish

From about 1648, Stony Stratford was divided between the ecclesiastical parishes of Calverton and

, and covered by two chapelries: St Giles, attached to Calverton; and St Mary Magdalen, attached to Wolverton. St Mary Magdalen dates from about 1450, though only the tower remains from the 1742 fire. St Giles dates from the 15th century (as a

chantry chapel A chantry is an ecclesiastical term that may have either of two related meanings: # a chantry service, a Christian liturgy of prayers for the dead, which historically was an obiit, or # a chantry chapel, a building on private land, or an area in ...

), but all but the tower was rebuilt in 1776 to accommodate the parishioners of St Mary Magdalen. A single civil parish was established 'early' and from 1767 a single ecclesiastical parish covered the two. In modern times, the ecclesiastical parish of Stony Stratford was merged with another parish, Stony Stratford St Mary the Virgin (prior to 1953 known as Wolverton St Mary), in 1968, to create the parish of Stony Stratford St Mary and St Giles. Around that time, the civil parish was also divided, into East (St Mary Magdelene) and West (St Giles) sides. Both the civil parishes became part of

in 1919. These urban parishes were wound up in 1927 and both added to the parish of Wolverton.

Modern parish

The civil parish consists of the land north of H2 Millers Way to the south, the city boundary to the west, the Great Ouse to the north and the A5 road to the east. The V4 Watling Street becomes Queen Eleanor Street here as it follows the original Stony Stratford bypass. Its districts are these: * Stony Stratford itself (defined H1 Ridgeway to the south, the city boundary to the west, the river to the north and the V4 Queen Eleanor Street to the east) * Galley Hill (H1 to the south, V4 to the west and the A5 to the north-east). * Fullers Slade (H2 to the south, H1 to the north, V4 Watling Street to the west and the A5 to the east). The modern civil parish was established in 2001.

Images of Stony Stratford

References

External links

A tour of Stony Stratford, comparing early and modern photographs, at the Milton Keynes Heritage Association web site.

* ttp://stonystratfordmethodistchurch.synthasite.com Stony Stratford Methodist Church
'Parishes : Stony Stratford', A History of the County of Buckingham: Volume 4 (1927), pp. 476–482.

Aerial photographs & video of Stony Stratford and the surrounding area.

Aerial panoramas of the landscape surrounding Stony Stratford.

Stony Stratford redevelopment, part of Milton Keynes - A Village Life on BFI Player.
{{authority control Towns in Buckinghamshire Market towns in Buckinghamshire Populated places on the River Great Ouse Milton Keynes Civil parishes in Buckinghamshire