Lavendon
| Lavendon | |
| Buckinghamshire | |
|---|---|
| |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SP915535 |
| Location: | 52°10’19"N, -0°39’47"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 1,303 (2011) |
| Post town: | Olney |
| Postcode: | MK46 |
| Dialling code: | 01234 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Milton Keynes |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Milton Keynes North |
Lavendon is the northernmost village in Buckinghamshire. It is found to the north-east of Olney, just north of the Great Ouse. It is eight miles west of Bedford (Bedfordshire), and eight miles north-east of Newport Pagnell (Northamptonshire).
To the north of the village, on Castle Farm, are the remains of a mediæval castle.
Nearby places are Warrington, and Cold Brayfield in Milton Keynes Borough, and Harrold and Carlton over the border in Bedfordshire.
The Buckinghamshire Way runs between Lavendon and Warrington and reaches its northern end just beyond the village.
History
The village name is derived from a personal name and a place-name element from the Old English Lafan denu, meaning 'Lafa's valley'. In the Domesday Book of 1086 the village is recorded as Lavendene and Lawendene.[1]
At Castle Farm are the earthworks of a motte-and-bailey castle created in the twelfth century by de Bidun family as the headquarters of their barony of Lavendon.[2][3] The castle was last recorded in 1232.
The village was once the location of a Premonstratensian abbey, founded between 1155 and 1158 by John de Bidun. The abbey was suppressed in the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536.[4] It stood at what is now Grange Farm.
The village was on the route of the 1936 Jarrow March, and there is a small plaque on the churchyard wall to commemorate this.
Churches
The parish church is dedicated to St Michael.
There is a small but active Baptist Chapel.
About the village
The village has a combined junior school. It also has a village store and Post Office, an independent garage, village hall and two public houses, the Green Man and The Horseshoe. There is also a pre-school and a nursery.
The company Tusting has a small factory on Olney Road producing a wide range of luxury leather goods which are exported worldwide.
Outside links
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Lavendon) |
References
- ↑ V. Watts, The Cambridge Dictionary of Place-Names (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2004), p. 363
- ↑ Sanders, I. J.: 'English Baronies: A Study of Their Origin and Descent, 1086-1327' (Clarendon, 1960), p. 128
- ↑ Stenton, F.: 'The First Century of English Feudalism, 1066-1166', 2nd edition (Clarendon Press, 1961), p. 205n
- ↑ D. Knowles and R. N. Hadcock, Mediæval Religious Houses of England and Wales, 2nd edition (Longmans: London, 1971), pp. 184, 190