Water Eaton is an area of

Milton Keynes Milton Keynes ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in Buckinghamshire, England, about north-west of London. At the 2021 Census, the population of Milton Keynes urban area, its urban area was 264,349. The River Great Ouse forms t ...

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 and in the

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 ...

of Bletchley and Fenny Stratford. It is to the south of

Fenny Stratford Fenny Stratford is a constituent town of Milton Keynes, a city in Buckinghamshire, England. It is administered by Bletchley and Fenny Stratford, a civil parish under the Milton Keynes City Council. It is located around Watling Street, at the ...

and contiguous with it. It is one of the ancient Buckinghamshire villages that became incorporated as part of Milton Keynes in 1967.

History

By the date of designation of Milton Keynes, Water Eaton had already been virtually absorbed by the 1960s

Greater London Council The Greater London Council (GLC) was the top-tier local government administrative body for Greater London from 1965 to 1986. It replaced the earlier London County Council (LCC) which had covered a much smaller area. The GLC was dissolved in 198 ...

-built London overspill district known as the Lakes Estate. The GLC was very proud of the Lakes Estate, declaring it to be the finest in modern architecture for a working class estate, based on the '' Radburn design'' concept pioneered in

Radburn, New Jersey Radburn is an local government in New Jersey#Unincorporated communities, unincorporated community located within the borough (New Jersey), borough of Fair Lawn, New Jersey, Fair Lawn in Bergen County, New Jersey, Bergen County, in the U.S. st ...

. The Lakes Estate was one of a number of developments around Bletchley and Fenny Stratford in the 1950s and 60s, intended to resettle people from poor-quality housing in war-damaged London. Water Eaton was formerly a hamlet in the parish of

Bletchley Bletchley is a constituent town of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England, in the south-west of the city, split between the civil parishes in England, civil parishes of Bletchley and Fenny Stratford and West Bletchley, which In 2011 had a com ...

, in 1866 Water Eaton became a separate

, on 1 April 1934 the parish was abolished and merged with Bletchley. In 1931 the parish had a population of 180.

Name

The village name 'Eaton' is

Old English language Old English ( or , or ), 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 developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo- ...

word referring to a farming settlement, and the whole means 'farm by a river'. It is first mentioned in the 1086

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 ...

(as simply Eaton); when it was held by

Geoffrey de Montbray Geoffrey de Montbray (died 1093), also known as Montbrai, Mowbray or Geoffrey of Coutances, was a Normans, Norman nobleman, :wikt:secular, secular prelate, warrior and administrator who was Bishop of Coutances from 1049 to 1093. He was an adviser ...

, and was listed as having a Mill.

References

Areas of Milton Keynes Radburn design housing estates Former civil parishes in Buckinghamshire {{Buckinghamshire

History

Name

See also

References