| Stone | |
St John the Baptist parish church, Stone |
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Stone
Stone shown within Buckinghamshire |
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| Population | 2,473 [1] |
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| OS grid reference | SP783123 |
| Parish | Stone with Bishopstone and Hartwell |
| District | Aylesbury Vale |
| Shire county | Buckinghamshire |
| Region | South East |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | AYLESBURY |
| Postcode district | HP17 |
| Dialling code | 01296 |
| Police | Thames Valley |
| Fire | Buckinghamshire |
| Ambulance | South Central |
| EU Parliament | South East England |
| UK Parliament | Aylesbury |
| List of places: UK • England • Buckinghamshire | |
Stone is a village in Buckinghamshire, England. It is located southwest of the town of Aylesbury, on the A418 road that links Aylesbury to Thame. Stone with Bishopstone and Hartwell is a civil parish within Aylesbury Vale district and also incorporates the nearby settlements of Bishopstone and Hartwell.
The architect Clough Williams-Ellis designed the village hall in 1910.
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The village name is Anglo Saxon in origin, and refers literally to boundary stone or marker stone. In the Domesday Book of 1086 the village was recorded as Stanes.
The village of Stone adjoins the village of Hartwell.
The parish church is dedicated to St John the Baptist, and is dated 1273. The graveyard contains the grave of Admiral Smyth.
In 1806, Magna Britannia[2] described Stone as
In 1839, John Lee and the Royal Astronomical Society jointly owned the advowson of the parish. They appointed amateur scientist the Rev. Joseph Bancroft Reade as vicar. Reade served as incumbent until 1859, establishing a school and an astronomical observatory, and performing pioneering work in the early development of photography.[3][4]
Stone Church of England Combined School is voluntary controlled, mixed primary school with approximately 180 pupils aged between four and eleven. The school's catchment area includes the nearby villages of Bishopstone and Hartwell, and children transfer to the school from Dinton Church of England School, at the age of seven. The school dates from 1871, but most of the present buildings date from 1973 when a major programme of building work provided a hall, new classrooms, a library, changing rooms, offices and an extended playground. The current headteacher is Simon Rose who took over from Ian Stewart in September 2006. The school has been gradually improving in the last few years, since Ofsted judged it to have "serious weaknesses" in November 2000. In 2006 the school was judged to be "satisfactory" and a 2007 Monitoring Report identified "good progress" in improving the curriculum and teaching. In 2007 the school's Key Stage 2 results matched the England average, although they were slightly below the average for Buckinghamshire.[5][6]
In the early 19th century an asylum (later known as St. John's Hospital) was opened in Stone for people with disabilities or mental illnesses. It was closed in 1991, and the vast expanse of land has since been given over to a new housing estate.[7] Initially it was proposed that the Hospital site be saved and converted but attempts failed because the government insisted it be demolished as it was allegedly more economical. All that remains are the staff houses and the grade-II asylum chapel which is closed and boarded pending conversion to 3 dwellings.
During World War II, a Prisoner of War camp was located in Stone (Camp No. 36 Hartwell Dog Track).
The camp was known to house Italian prisoners from 1942 to 1946 and consisted mostly of tents with one hut.[8] A 1945 aerial view of the camp can be seen on Google Earth (v.6); this shows camp buildings at Grid reference SP797120 , on what is now the Meadoway housing estate adjacent to Sedrup Lane. Remains of the camp were still evident on the site in the 1950s.
English Heritage[9] incorrectly shows the camp as being at grid reference SP807121; this is about 1 km to the east, in a field near to Ellen Road on the outskirts of Aylesbury, and adjacent to where the Walton Court housing estate was later built; the 1945 aerial photos do not support there having been any buildings at that location.