Whaddon is a village and also a civil parish in Buckinghamshire, England, within the Buckinghamshire Council unitary authority area. It is situated just outside of Bletchley, a constituent town of Milton Keynes.

Whaddon
Whaddon, 2020
Whaddon is located in Buckinghamshire
Whaddon
Whaddon
Location within Buckinghamshire
Population533 (2011 Census)[1]
OS grid referenceSP805340
Unitary authority
Ceremonial county
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townMILTON KEYNES
Postcode districtMK17
Dialling code01908
PoliceThames Valley
FireBuckinghamshire
AmbulanceSouth Central
UK Parliament
List of places
UK
England
Buckinghamshire
52°00′00″N 0°49′41″W / 52.000°N 0.828°W / 52.000; -0.828

The village name is Anglo Saxon in origin, and means 'hill where wheat is grown'. The village is referred to several times in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle generally in the form of Hwætædun.

The village is at the centre of the ancient Whaddon Chase, the site for many centuries of royal hunting lands. Whaddon Chase is designated an area of 'Special Landscape Interest'.

The Church of St Mary is a grade I listed building.[2]

Whaddon Church of England School is a mixed Church of England primary school. It is a voluntary controlled school, which takes children from the age of four through to the age of eleven. The school has approximately 50 pupils.

Richard Cox (ca.1500 – 1581), an English clergyman, who was Dean of Westminster and Bishop of Ely, was born at Whaddon.[3]

Whaddon Hall, the village manor, was once home to the Selby family (also known as Selby-Lowndes), whose ancestor William Lowndes (1652–1724) built the larger and grander Winslow Hall. Both mansions are still private houses.[4] During the Second World War Whaddon Hall served as headquarters of Section VIII (Communications) of MI6, as an outpost of Bletchley Park.[5]

References

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  1. ^ Neighbourhood Statistics 2011 census, Accessed 3 February 2013
  2. ^ Historic England. "Church of St Mary (1216538)". National Heritage List for England.
  3. ^ Pollard, Albert Frederick (1911). "Cox, Richard" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 7 (11th ed.). p. 353.
  4. ^ "From the Wireless War to Warwick". 2.warwick.ac.uk. University of Warwick. Retrieved 9 November 2012.
  5. ^ Pidgeon, Geoffrey (2003). Station X — The Secret Wireless War. Universal Publishing Solutions Online Ltd. ISBN 978-1-84375-252-3.
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