Quarrendon
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Quarrendon is both the name of an ancient village on the outskirts of Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire and the name of a large housing estate that forms part of Aylesbury.
Coming from the Old English Cweorndun the name means 'hill where mill stones are obtained'. There is evidence to suggest that the village dates back at least as far as the Anglo Saxon period as the village was reputedly the birthplace of St Edburga, St Edith and their niece St Osyth. Legend has it that St Osyth was beheaded by the Danish occupiers of Britain at the holy waters in Quarrendon.
Queen Elizabeth I was entertained at Quarrendon Manor by Sir Henry Lee for two days in 1592. The village remained with its manor intact until the 18th Century, when Henry Lee, the Lord of the Manor, went bankrupt and lost all his lands. The only remaining building in the old village is the ruined church of St Peter, now missing its roof: only the two west bays of the nave remain and part of the north aisle. The building is late 13th century and has octagonal piers and square headed aisle windows. In 1817 the building was described in the Gentleman's Magazine as "..a melancholy object of contemplation". However the moat, fish ponds and groundworks still remain.
The Quarrendon housing estate on the north west side of Aylesbury was started in the post war years and added to right through to the 1980s. It is now one of the largest housing estates in the modern town of Aylesbury with a population in the 2001 census of 5,897 people.