Great Linford

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Great Linford is an historic village, district and civil parish in the northern of part of Milton Keynes, England, between Wolverton and Newport Pagnell.

[edit] Great Linford village

Anciently the village was in historic Buckinghamshire and was incorporated into Milton Keynes at the designation of the new city in 1967.

Written as Great Linford to distinguish it from the even tinier Little Linford, the village is another on the Grand Union Canal. The name Linford is thought to derive from the crossing point over the River Ouse which now separates Great Linford from Little Linford to the north, where there were linden trees. It appears in the Domesday Book as Linforde. Today, the outer buildings of the seventeenth-century Linford Manor form an Arts Centre, and the house itself is a prestigious recording studio.

In the early Seventeenth century, the rector of this parish Dr Richard Napier was widely known as a medical practitioner, astrologer and curer of souls. He was referred to by many in the upper classes, including the Earl of Sunderland who lived under his care for some time.

Great Linford was also home to Sir William Pritchard in the later part of that century, who was president of St Bartholomew's Hospital in London. He founded almshouses in Great Linford, which are still there today.

The parish church is dedicated to Saint Andrew and dates from 1215.

[edit] Civil parish

In addition to Great Linford district itself (with the historic village at its core), the civil parish also includes the districts of Giffard Park, Blakelands, Neath Hill, Pennyland, Tongwell, Conniburrow, Downs Barn and Downhead Park.

The parish is bounded to the north by Newport Road, to the west by the B4034/V8 Marlborough Street (as far as H4 Dansteed Way), then along Dansteed Way as far as V7 Saxon Street, south along Saxon Street as far as the A509/H5 Portway, then east along Portway to V10 Brickhill Street, then north along Brickhill Street to Dansteed Way again, then east again along Dansteed Way to the M1, then north along the motorway until it reaches Newport Road again. The Grand Union Canal bisects the parish.

The parish increased in population from 263 in the 1971 census to 11,882 in the 1981 census, an increase of some 4,400%.

(Little Linford is in the adjoining parish of Haversham-cum-Little Linford. Linford Wood is in the adjoining Stantonbury parish.