Milton Keynes
Milton Keynes is a
purpose-built, high-technology 'new city' in
South East England. It is located about 45 miles (75 km) north west of
London and approximately mid-way between
Oxford and
Cambridge. With
other towns it forms the
unitary authority of the
Borough of Milton Keynes.
The concepts that heavily influenced the design of the city are described in detail in article urban planning - see "cells" (= grid squares) under Planning and aesthetics
; but see also article single-use zoning.Milton Keynes Development Corporation planned the city's layout on a grid pattern of approximately 1 km interval, rather than on the more conventional
radial pattern seen elsewhere in older settlements. Major roads within the city are drawn between communities, rather than through them: the major roads are known locally as
grid roads and the spaces between them are known as
grid squares. Intervals of 1 km were chosen so that people would always be within walking distance of a bus stop (buses were originally intended to run only on the grid but this has not happened — buses take tortuous routes through the grid squares). Consequently each grid square is a semi-autonomous community, making a unique collective of 100 clearly identifiable neighbourhoods within the overall
urban environment. The grid squares have a variety of development styles, ranging from conventional urban development and industrial parks, to original
rural and modern urban and pseudo-rural developments.
Roundabouts were chosen at junctions since the grid roads were intended to carry large volumes of traffic: this type of junction is efficient at dealing with these volumes. Along the edges of each grid road there are large grassed areas. This is deliberate and allowed for roads to be upgraded from single carriageway to become dual carriageways as traffic volumes dictate. The edges of each grid square are heavily landscaped and some are banked up and densely planted. The purpose of this was to reduce traffic noise for residents but traffic noise is still significant at some locations. Traffic movements are fast, with little congestion since there are many alternative routes to a particular destination. The national speed limit applies on dualed sections of the grid roads most single carraigeway grid roads having a speed limit of 60 although some have now been reduced to 40 mph. Consequently the risk to unwary pedestrians and turning traffic is significant. High speed accidents have resulted in deaths and serious injuries that might otherwise have been avoided. Monitoring station data shows that pollution is lower than in similar size settlements elsewhere.
Linear parks
The
flood plains of the
Great Ouse and of its tributaries (the Ouzel and some brooks) have been protected as linear parks that run right through the city. The
Grand Union Canal is another green route (and demonstrates the level topology of the city - there is just one minor lock in its entire 10 mile route through from
Fenny Stratford to the "Iron Trunk"
Aqueduct at
Wolverton. The
Milton Keynes redway system of cycleways and footpaths uses these and other routes.
Further development plans
In January 2004, Deputy Prime Minister
John Prescott announced
[http://society.guardian.co.uk/urbandesign/story/0,11200,1116879,00.html?=rss] the Government's plan to double the population of Milton Keynes by
2025. He appointed
English Partnerships to do so, taking planning controls away from
Milton Keynes Borough Council and making EP the statutory planning authority. Their proposal for the next phase of expansion moves away from grid squares to large scale, mixed use, higher density development. The
more detailed article expands on the details of their proposals.
As might be anticipated, these plans are controversial — especially since the local population has little democratic control over the plans and actions of this Government-appointed
Quango.
Milton Keynes has a
1,400 seat theatre/concert hall (Blonski-Heard, 1999), whose high booking rate allows it to lay claim to the title "Britain's most popular theatre". The theatre has a unusual feature: the ceiling can be lowered closing off the third tier (gallery) to create a more intimate space for smaller scale productions. There are further performance spaces in Bletchley, Leadenhall, Shenley, Stantonbury and Walton.
Apart from the building itself (exterior surface by
Michael Craig-Martin),
the municipal (art) gallery (next to the main theatre) does not have a permanent collection. This allows it to host edgy shows to critical acclaim.
In
Wavendon, on the south-east edge of the city,
The Stables provides a venue for
jazz,
blues,
folk,
rock,
classical,
pop and world music. It is closely associated with jazz artists
Cleo Laine and
John Dankworth. The venue also hosts an annual
summer camp for young musicians.
Near Loughton and Furzton, the open air
National Bowl is a 65,000 "seat" venue for large scale rock (and classical) concerts. The
main article lists many of the famous bands to have played there, and lists
DVD recordings of their performances.
Another music venue, very popular with teenagers, is
The Pitz in the
Woughton Centre, Leadenhall. It usually features a mixture of
punk,
alternative rock, and
heavy metal.
There are two
museums, the
Bletchley Park museum of wartime cryptography, and the
Milton Keynes Museum, which includes the Stacey Hill Collection of rural life that existed before the foundation of the new city.
The city also has a
literature scene, with groups like
Speakeasy meeting regularly and hosting performance events, and the city's only
poetry magazine,
Monkey Kettle coming out three times a year.
The city is home to the
Open University, though the only students resident on campus are approximately 200
postgraduates. The majority of Open University students are distance learners. It is the largest academic institution in the UK with 180,000 students.
Cranfield University, another postgraduate school, is located just outside the city, in
Cranfield,
Bedfordshire.
Milton Keynes College provides Further Education to
Foundation Degree level.
Like most of the rest of the UK (though not of
Buckinghamshire), the state secondary schools in Milton Keynes use the "
Comprehensive System". Results are above the national average, though below that of the rest of Buckinghamshire — but the
demography of Milton Keynes is also far closer to the national average than is the latter.
*
Radio: Milton Keynes is served by two major public radio stations,
BBC Three Counties Radio and
FM 103 Horizon (103.3 FM) plus a number of other cable, closed circuit and internet services.
*
Television:The area is in the overlap between the
Oxford and the
Sandy transmitters and so receives
BBC South and BBC East, and ITV
Central and
Anglia to varying degrees of inferior signal quality due to distance and "terrain shadow". The local cable TV network is generally preferred as a result.
Freeview reception is patchy and typically requires a high gain aerial.
Freesat provides an alternative option.
*
Print: Milton Keynes has two main local newspapers, the
Citizen and
MK News plus a number of other periodicals.
Milton Keynes has professional teams in
football (
Milton Keynes Dons F.C.),
ice hockey (
Milton Keynes Lightning) and in
basketball (
Milton Keynes Lions). It is represented at amateur level in many sports, some at national level. For details see
Sport in Milton Keynes.
*Milton Keynes has a 200km network of
cycleways/footpaths for pedestrians and
cyclists called
the Redway system, generally surfaced with red tarmac, which criss-cross most of city. The national
SUSTRANS cycle network runs to and through the city. The
Swans Way long distance path does the same.
*Central Milton Keynes has an important regional retail centre. It includes Middleton Hall that plays host to exhibitions, fairs and displays throughout the year.
*Milton Keynes is home to the National
Badminton Centre and the
National Hockey Stadium, (which is also the temporary home ground to
Milton Keynes Dons F.C., pending completion of a
permanent 30,000 seater stadium near Bletchley).
*The city is an important venue for street
skateboarding. There is now
a dedicated skate park next to the bus station, but the wide spaces, slopes and edges of the main
railway station plaza remain very popular to skate-boarders: their continued
skateboarding tricks, but especially the
freestyle BMX riders' stunts, continue to damage the local environment.
*The
BMX track is at
Pineham ().
*There is a high security
Prison,
HMP Woodhill, on the western boundary of the city.
*There is an
YHA youth hostel in
Bradwell village at on the
Sustrans long distance trail.
*The Theatre District includes many
bars,
pubs,
restaurants and
clubs.
*Nearby, the
Xscape Dome includes an indoor snow slope, a multiplex
cinema, skydiving simulator, climbing wall and sports-related retail outlets.
*Near the station, the "Planet Ice"
ice rink is used for professional and amateur
ice hockey plus leisure skating. See
Sport in Milton Keynes#Ice hockey for details.
*More than one million visitors come to
Willen Lakeside Park each year to play, picnic, take part in
watersports,
jog, attend events or simply relax and watch the world go by. It is a walk of approximately 1.75 miles around the South Lake. The North Lake is a
bird sanctuary.
*
Milton Keynes has its own nature reserve in Bletchley.
The Blue Lagoon there attracts many local visitors every day. Many school children in Bletchley learn about the history of this beautiful site.
The historical settlements have been focal points for the modern development of the new city. Every grid square has historical antecedents, if only in the field names. The more obvious ones are listed below and most have more detailed articles.
(See footnote for pronunciations of names.) * At
Bancroft, the foundations of a
Romano-British farm are to be seen in what is now the North Loughton Park, overlooking the Shenley Brook. The brook valley here is part of the
flood control system and there is a permanent wetland with associated plants and wild-life. The famous
Concrete Cows are at the southern end of the park.
 |
During World War II, British, Polish and American cryptographers at Bletchley Park broke a large number of Axis codes and ciphers, including the German Enigma machine. |
*
Bletchley was first recorded in the
12th century as
Blechelai.
Its station was a major
Victorian junction (the
London and North Western Railway with the Oxford-Cambridge
Varsity Line), leading to the substantial urban growth in the town in that period. It expanded to absorb the villages of
Water Eaton and
Fenny Stratford.
**
Bletchley Park was home to the
Government Code and Cypher School during the
Second World War. The famous
Enigma code was cracked here, and the building housed what was arguably the world's first programmable
computer,
Colossus. The house is now a
museum of war memorabilia, cryptography and computing.
* The
Benedictine Priory at
Bradwell was of major economic importance in this area of North Buckinghamshire before the
Dissolution of the Monasteries. The routes of the medieval trackways converge on the site from some distance (many of which are now Redways or bridleways). Nowadays, there is only a small medieval chapel and a manor house occupying the site.
*
New Bradwell, to the north of the medieval Bradwell (Abbey) and just across the canal and the railway to the east of Wolverton, was built specifically for railway workers. It has a working
windmill. The level bed of the old tramway from
Newport Pagnell to
Wolverton ends here and has been converted to a redway, making it a favourite route for cycling.
*
Broughton was a tiny hamlet on the old
Northampton to
London turnpike, joining
Watling Street at
Fenny Stratford.
*
Caldecotte is small hamlet, originally of 8 houses, in the south east of Milton Keynes near
Bow Brickhill, now largely surrounded by a
balancing lake.
*
Central Milton Keynes is built on the highest land. The original
moot mound of the
Secklow Hundred remains extant behind the central Library.
* The name
Fenny Stratford is an
Anglo Saxon expression meaning "marshy
ford on a Roman road". The
Roman road in this case is the
Watling Street. There are traces of the Roman settlement
Magiovinium on the edge of the present day occupation. The town grew in the canal era, when the
Grand Union Canal came through. With the coming of the
railway, Fenny declined and was swept up by its neighbour,
Bletchley that was growing to be an important railway town.
* Written as
Great Linford to distinguish it from the even tinier
Little Linford across the
River Ouse, this village is another on the
Grand Union Canal. It appears in the
Domesday Book as
Linforde, and features a
church to
Saint Andrew dating from 1215. Today, the outer buildings of the seventeenth-century
manor house form an Arts Centre, and the house itself is a prestigious recording studio.
* The present day name of
Loughton is Anglo Saxon, meaning 'Luhha's estate'. In the
Domesday Book of 1086 the village was recorded as Lochintone. The village is in the linear park and hosts the
National Badminton training centre and a major equestrian facility.
*
Milton Keynes Village is the original village to which the New City owes its name. The original village is still evident, with a pleasant
thatched
pub, village hall, church and traditional housing. The area around the village has reverted to its original name of
Middleton, as shown on old maps of the
1700s. The oldest
[http://www.mkweb.co.uk/statistics/DisplayArticle.asp?ID=11415] surviving domestic building in the area, a
fourteenth century manor house, is here.
*
The Shenley villages are on the west side of
Watling Street opposite Loughton and were originally part of the larger settlement recorded in the Domesday Book as
Senelai. In Shenley Church End, there are the earthworks of a
motte and bailey castle ("Shenley Toot") and its surrounding village.
*
Simpson is a small hamlet on the original
Northampton to
London road and on the
Grand Union Canal.
*Little if anything remains of the original village that was
Stantonbury. Today it is better known for its large
secondary school,
Stantonbury Campus and Milton Keynes Music Service.
|
Stony Stratford high street in festive mood |
* There has been a market in
Stony Stratford since 1194 (by charter of
King Richard I). Two hotels in the centre of town,
The Cock and
The Bull were originally coaching inns on the main London to Chester and North Wales
turnpike (Watling Street). Travellers gossip and rumour was exchanged at the two and was renowned for being far-fetched and fanciful. This is believed to be the origin of the
Cock and Bull Story.
* Just a few farm houses, a moat and a church[
1] (1540) remain of historical
Tattenhoe village and
Manor — it was largely deserted in the 16th century. Nearby and just outside the city boundary, the foundations of the
Benedictine Priory at Snelshall can still be seen.
* The manor house of
Walton village,
Walton Hall, is the headquarters of the
Open University and the tiny parish church (deconsecrated) is in its grounds. It is on the banks of the
river Ouzel, a tributary of the
Great Ouse, where there a disused
balancing lake has been 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.
* The tiny Parish Church (
1680) at
Willen contains the only unaltered building by the architect and physicist
Robert Hooke. Nearby, there is a
Buddhist Temple and a
Peace Pagoda. The district borders the
River Ouzel: there is a large
balancing lake here, to capure
flash floods before they cause problems down stream on the
River Great Ouse. The north basin is a wild-life sanctuary and a favourite of migrating acquatic birds. The south basin is for leisure use, favoured by wind surfers and dinghy sailors. The circuit of the lakes is a favoured "fun run".
* The original
Wolverton was a medieval settlement just north and west of today's town. The
Ridge and Furrow pattern of agriculture can still be seen in the nearby fields and the Saxon (rebuilt in
1819)
Church of the Holy Trinity still sits next to the Norman
Motte and Bailey site. Modern Wolverton was a
19th century New Town built to house the workers at the
Wolverton railway works (which built engines and carriages for the
London and North Western Railway).
* The twin villages of
Great Woolstone and
Little Woolstone are centrally located in the new city, yet retain much of their rural charm. They are listed in the
Domesday Book as
Wlsiestone, an Anglo-saxon word meaning "Wulfsige's farm". The
Grand Union Canal runs alongside: the village pub was built to relieve the
navvies of their wages and retains many original features.
* In the
Domesday Book,
Woughton on the Green was recorded as Ulchetone, an Anglo Saxon name meaning Eoca's Farm. Over the years, the pronunciation altered to "Wufton" and later spelt Woughton. "On the Green" refers to the traditional village green in the centre of the village. The
Grand Union Canal runs alongside.
As a child of the 60s, Milton Keynes has grown up with the late 20th and early 21st century, gaining a place in British popular culture. This is enough for a
separate article.
* By
rail, Milton Keynes has five stations —
**three on the north/south
West Coast Main Line :
Bletchley (MK south),
Milton Keynes Central, and
Wolverton (MK north)
**three on the east/west
Marston Vale Line (the remnant of the Oxford-Cambridge
Varsity Line) :
Bletchley (again),
Fenny Stratford, and
Bow Brickhill (MK south-east).
***
Inter-city rail services run to Milton Keynes Central only.
* By
Road:
**
North/South***
M1 Northbound: J14 for central and northern areas, J13 for southern areas (Bletchley to Wavendon).
***M1 Southbound: J15A (via A45 then A5) for north side (Stony Stratford and Wolverton); J14 for
Central Milton Keynes and south side.
***Also
A5 (
Watling Street) and
A509.
**
East/West***
A421 (centre and south),
A422 (north).
**Many long-distance
coaches to the Midlands and North (including National Express services from London Victoria Coach Station and Golders Green Bus Station) stop at the rather desolate
Milton Keynes Coachway beside M1 Junction 14, near a
park and ride car park, about three miles (5 km) from the centre (3.5 miles from MK Central station). For connecting bus services, see
MKWEB. Stagecoach operates a coach service (X5) running west to east (Oxford, Milton Keynes, Bedford, Cambridge). This service calls at MK Central railway station, Central MK and the Coachway.
* By
Bicycle: Milton Keynes
is served by routes 6 and 51 on the
National Cycle Network. Cycle storage can be found along route 51 at Milton Keynes Central railway station (covered cycle racks) and at the junction of Midsummer Boulevard and Witan Gate, where there are storage and changing facilities available.
* By
Air**The nearest international airport (50 km) is
Luton, but there is only an hourly coach service from 06:00 to 21:00 from there to the centre and to MK Central station. This airport is mainly used by low cost airlines, notably
Easyjet and
Ryanair.
Birmingham International Airport (100 km) is more mainstream, with frequent rail connections from
Birmingham International railway station to MK Central.
**The other London airports
Heathrow,
Gatwick and (especially)
Stansted can be rather painful to reach by public transport if you are unfamiliar with local British transport idiosyncrasies. The public transport route from these stations would have to involve a coach or train to central London, then a train (from
Euston) or take a coach to Milton Keynes (from
Victoria Coach Station). Alternatively, to reach Heathrow you can take a train to Watford Junction (30-40 mins) from MK Central, and catch the Virgin RailAir Bus link to Heathrow (about 1 hr) which leaves every half hour during the day. You can also catch a connecting train from Watford to Gatwick Airport (hourly). The MK Coach station also have National Express Buses that service Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted (regularity varies but usually hourly during the day for all except Stansted which is every 2 hours).
**There is
an aerodrome at Cranfield (10 km from CMK).
|
The Grand Union Canal enters Milton Keynes |
* By
Water: the
Grand Union Canal (London/Birmingham) provides a major axis in the design of Milton Keynes.
*
Official website for Milton Keynes and North Bucks, in association with Milton Keynes Council *
Unofficial site run by Milton Keynes' local newspaper the Citizen. Covers local news and sport*
City Discovery Centre*
General facts and figures about Milton Keynes from official council site.*
"What's on" and current affairs from council portal site.*
The Open Guide to Milton Keynes - an online community guide that anyone can contribute to*
Milton Keynes Heritage Association - including archeological links*
Milton Keynes Council*
General facts and figures about Milton Keynes *
Pictures of Milton Keynes
