Stoke Hammond

Infobox UK place
country = England
official_name= Stoke Hammond
latitude= 51.9568
longitude= -0.7190
civil_parish= Stoke Hammond
population = 849 [ [http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/dissemination/LeadTableView.do?a=7&b=792088&c=Stoke+Hammond&d=16&e=15&g=424212&i=1001x1003x1004&m=0&r=1&s=1216670620906&enc=1&dsFamilyId=779 Neighbourhood Statistics 2001 Census] ]
shire_district= Aylesbury Vale
shire_county= Buckinghamshire
region= South East England
constituency_westminster= Buckingham
post_town= MILTON KEYNES
postcode_district= MK17
postcode_area= MK
dial_code= 01525
os_grid_reference= SP885295

Stoke Hammond is a village and also a civil parish within Aylesbury Vale district in north Buckinghamshire, England, about two and a half miles south of Fenny Stratford (Milton Keynes).

The village was first recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as "Stoche": a common place name in England denoting an Anglo-Saxon church or place of worship. The suffix Hammond was added later in manorial records though it refers to the family who owned the estate at the time of the Domesday survey. Hamon Brito, son of Mainfelin Brito, was the owner of the manor of Stoke in the 12th century.

The manor later passed into the ownership of the Duke of Norfolk; the family still owned it at the end of the Victorian era. The Disney family, apparently related to the illustrator Walt Disney, was also at one time an influential family in the parish.

The parish church is dedicated to St Luke. There is also a Methodist Chapel, built in 1927.

The A4146 road passed through the village until the new bypass opened on 14 September 2007.

The village is close to the West Coast Railway line, although there is no station in the village. The nearest stations are Bletchley and Leighton Buzzard.

The Grand Union Canal passes close by the village.

It is one of the 32 Thankful Villages which lost no men in the First World War, as identified by the writer Arthur Mee in the 1930s.

Famous residents include Toy Valentine, bassist with the all-girl punk band The Faders

References