The Placemakers

Before one can tell the story of Milton Keynes, one must tell the story of Bletchley. The unlovely name means ‘Blaecca’s clearing’. Neighbouring Fenny Stratford is no less prosaic: the Latin strata is the most literary constituent of the name, most likely referring to Watling Road, which stretches from Dover to the Roman city of Chester. Ford refers to a river crossing, and Fenny means that the area was, well, fenny, muddy and flat. Following much the same history of the rest of South West England, Bletchley’s main redeeming feature is that it is roughly halfway between London and Birmingham, Oxford and Cambridge. For an understanding of Bletchley’s preindustrial history one must consult the modest books that are easily missed next to brassier titles such as Colossus (!) and Station X (!!). Local rector F.W. Bennitt’s prosaically named Bletchley is a gem filled with passages about local industry, entertainment and even a compendium on local dialect. Written in the mid thirties, it ...

To me many things in England are unspeakably old. I know this is a tiresome and somewhat embarrassing observation to make. It is really quite gauche to stand outside the thatched pub in Milton Keynes village and gawp like an American tourist. Of course it is old. This is unremarkable. But bear with me while I make two general arguments in my defence. Firstly I come from one of the last patches of the terrestrial crust to be inhabited by humans. Settled by Polynesians as an afterthought and founded by Europeans in 1840, my country as it stands now is quite young. Secondly I live in Milton Keynes, the largest of the “new towns” built after World War II. I had been prepared for the fact that everything in this city was built circa 1969. I was trained to assume anything that looked old was a Milton Keynes chocolate box rendition of something I would have to go a long way out of town to find. I now know that the new suburbs incorporated ancient villages into their grids. I am slowly a...