Adstock

Adstock
Buckinghamshire
St Cecilia's parish church
Location
Grid reference:	SP7330
Location:	51°57’54"N, -0°55’34"W
Data
Population:	363  (2011)
Post town:	Buckingham
Postcode:	MK18
Dialling code:	01296
Local Government
Council:	Buckinghamshire
Parliamentary constituency:	Buckingham

Adstock is a village and parish in the Buckingham Hundred of Buckinghamshire, about three miles south-east of Buckingham itself. The 2001 Census recorded a parish population of 415 reducing to 363 at the 2011 Census.

There are remains of a Roman road in the village.

Adstock was once surrounded by the Bernwood Forest, one of the most important Royal Forests. At the end of the 10th century, Adstock formed a portion of the Lands of Godwine, Earl of Kent and his second wife Gytha Thorkelsdóttir.

After the Norman conquest, its name was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Edestoche which is Old English and means Eadda's Farm. Nearby Addington was named after the same person.

In the mid to late 11th century the manor of Adstock was given by William the Conqueror to his illegitimate son William Peverel, who was listed as its owner in 1086. This suggests that the manor was of some value, or that its previous owner was of some prominence in Anglo-Saxon society.

The village received a charter to establish itself as a town briefly in 1665 so that a market could be held there. This was due to the majority of the people from the two local towns of Winslow and Buckingham being infected with bubonic plague. The charter was removed, however, in 1685 and Adstock was reinstated as a village rather than a town.

The parish church, which dates from the 12th century, is dedicated to St Cecilia. The roof is dated 1597, and the church underwent further major restoration during the Victorian era. There are two bells (the lightest of which dates back from about 1440) in the church and one Sanctus.

Adstock had an outstation from the Bletchley Park codebreaking establishment, where some of the Bombes used to decode German Enigma messages in World War Two were located.

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Adstock)

• Adstock in the Domesday Book