Stansted Mountfitchet

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Stansted Mountfitchet

Coordinates: 51.898047° N 0.198306° E
Population	5,533 (2001)
OS grid reference	TL513244
District	Uttlesford
Shire county	Essex
Region	East
Constituent country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	Bishop's Stortford
Postcode district	CM24
Dial code	01279
Police	Essex
Fire	Essex
Ambulance	East of England
UK Parliament	Saffron Walden
European Parliament	East of England
List of places: UK • England • Essex

Stansted Mountfitchet is a village and civil parish in the county of Essex, England, near the Hertfordshire border, 30 miles north of London. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 5,533.

Stansted Mountfitchet is situated in north-west Essex on the border of Hertfordshire's Bishops Stortford. BAA London Stansted Airport is just 2 miles from the village. The village contains 2 primary schools and one high school. The High School is now called Mountfitchet Mathematics and Computing College and has one of the best basketball teams in the area.

Stansted was a Saxon settlement (the name means 'stony place' in Saxon) and pre-dates the Norman invasion of England, although it wasn't until this invasion that it inherited the suffix Mountfitchet, from the Norman baron who settled there. A small remnant of his castle remains, around which a reconstruction of an early Norman castle has been built. Believed to have been fortified originally in the Iron Age, and subsequently by the Romans and Vikings, construction of the Norman castle began in 1066.

The village also boasts the House on the Hill Toy Museum, which is the largest toy museum in Europe. Located next to the castle, it opened in 1991 and holds over 80,000 toys, mostly from the 1950s to the 1980s.

A working windmill built in 1787 is in the village, and is open to the public once a month.

Stansted is also known internationally as the home of LostCousins, one of the UK's leading genealogy websites.

During the Second World War, the US Air Force constructed an airfield near the village. After the war ended, it was subsequently taken over by the Government and developed as a commercial airport. Today, Stansted Airport is accessible by road from Junction 8 of the M11 motorway, near Bishop's Stortford and direct by train from London Liverpool Street.