Ravenstone, Buckinghamshire

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Ravenstone
Buckinghamshire

All Saints' parish church
Location
Grid reference: SP850508
Location: 52°8’57"N, -0°45’51"W
Data
Population: 209  (2011[1])
Post town: Olney
Postcode: MK46
Dialling code: 01908
Local Government
Council: Milton Keynes
Parliamentary
constituency:
Milton Keynes North
Website: Ravenstone

Ravenstone is a village and parish in the Newport Hundred of Buckinghamshire, about two and a half miles west of Olney, and four miles north of Newport Pagnell. The 2011 Censu] recorded the parish population as 209.[1]

History

The toponym is derived from the Old English for "Hrafn's farm".

In 1255 a priory of Augustinian canons was founded in Ravenstone by King Henry III. Cardinal Wolsey took it over in 1525, and then in 1544 the Crown seized all of Wolsey's estates including Ravenstone Priory. After changing hands privately a number of occasions the building was eventually demolished, and today nothing remains.

The oldest parts of the Church of England parish church of All Saints are 11th-century. The church includes the tomb of Heneage Finch, 1st Earl of Nottingham. He had the neighbouring almshouses built, originally six for men and six for women, now combined into six cottages. The original inhabitants had to be single and members of the Church of England, and received a small pension, firewood, and a new cloak every Christmas.[2]

For a brief period the incumbent Thomas Scott, author of popular theological works and one of the founders of the Church Missionary Society.

A post office and The Wheatsheaf pub closed in the early 1990s.

Amenities

The only communal facility in Ravenstone is the village hall.

Notes

Sources and further reading

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material
about Ravenstone, Buckinghamshire)