Wing, Buckinghamshire

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

All Saints' Church, Wing. Its Saxon origins make it one of the oldest churches in England

Wing is a large village in Buckinghamshire, England. It is located on the main A418 road that links Aylesbury with Leighton Buzzard. It lies 8 miles north east of Aylesbury, 3 miles west of Leighton Buzzard and 12 miles south of Milton Keynes.

The name is recorded in the Domesday Book as Witehunge and in Anglo-Saxon c.966-975 as Weowungum (dative plural case). It could mean:-

"Wiwa's sons or people".
"The dwellers at, or devotees of, a heathen temple."

The first syllables of the names of the nearby village of Wingrave and the nearby hamlet of Wingbury have the same etymology.

The remains of the temple referred to may be under the Anglo-Saxon church, one of the oldest churches in the country.

The BBC television programme Meet the Ancestors came to Wing in 2000 and recreated the face of a Saxon girl found buried in the old graveyard.

Wing also has the oldest continuously used religious site in the country, with evidence showing the site at All Saints having religious usage going back well over 1300 years.

Historic Almshouse in Wing.

An ancient track, part of the pre-historic Icknield Way linking Oxford with Cambridge, once passed through the village. This was still in use in the medieval period and led to an increase in the village's size, though with the advent of modern roads and motorways this is less used today.

As early as the 7th century there was an abbey near the village at Ascott, that had been built by an unknown royal from the Kingdom of Wessex and given to a Benedictine convent in Angers. The Anglo-Saxon church in Wing, dedicated to All Saints, was also built at about this time by St Birinus³, however evidence found in the 15th century during extensive renovations on the church suggest a Roman structure had stood on this site beforehand⁴. Roman tiles may also be found in the ceiling of the crypt of the church. It is unusual among religious buildings of this age for the church and abbey to be built apart: if they were built at the same time it was normal for them to be constructed within the same complex of buildings. One possible explanation for this is that the church was built on a pre-existing religious site, which the evidence in the village's name and in the aforementioned archeological finds appears to suggest. The church contains a number of particularly fine monuments, including the "purest Renaissance monument of the mid-16th century" to Sir Robert Dormer (d.1552) and a wall monument by Roubiliac.

A traditional English lych gate is at the entrance to the church yard.

Wing leapt to fame in the 20th century when the location of a new London airport was being discussed, and Wing was one of the prime locations for it. A community campaign was organised, called the 'Wings Off Wing Campaign', and was successful: the airport at Heathrow was expanded instead. A World War II-vintage RAF airfield at Wing is now a chicken farm, though the layout of the runways can still be discerned from the air.

One feature of Wing is its surprising number of public houses. For a village of under 5,000 people there are 3 pubs and a social club. Perhaps unrelated is the fact that Wing is one of the few villages in Buckinghamshire to have its own police station.

There are two schools in Wing. Overstone Combined School for children aged 4-12 and Cottesloe School - educating those of secondary age (12-18).

Ascott House a home of the Rothschild family is situated in the parish.