Walton Hall is a district in Milton Keynes, in the English county of Buckinghamshire, and is the location of the campus and offices of The Open University.[1] The University campus covers 48 hectares and the first buildings were designed by Maxwell Fry & Jane Drew in 1969.
It is in the ancient (and modern) parish of Walton. The manor house (Walton Hall) that gives the district its name and the ancient[2] parish church of St Michael, now deconsecrated, are in the University's grounds. The village farm-lands are divided between Walton Hall, the modern Walton, Kents Hill and Walnut Tree.
The manor house itself is currently home to certain administrative offices of The Open University; its cellar has been home to the Cellar Bar, a ratskeller, since the earliest days of the University[3]. The bar, which was originally paid for out of the Bevan Fund[3], will be closing August 1, 2011, because it has been deemed not profitable by the university's Estates division.
Walton Hall is on the banks of the Ouzel, a tributary of the Great Ouse, where a disused balancing lake has become naturalised and is home to reeds, bulrushes, reed warbler, reed bunting, water rail, sparrowhawk, kestrel, green woodpecker, grass snake and many varieties of odonata. Surrounding the reedbed are ponds and open water, ancient hedgerows and hay meadow.