Wolverton, Milton Keynes
|
|
Template:GBdot Wolverton is an area of Milton Keynes, England. It is located to the north of the main town near Stony Stratford.
It is one of the places in the county of Buckinghamshire that went into the development of the modern town of Milton Keynes in the 1960s.
The town name is Anglo Saxon in origin, and means 'Wulfhere's estate'. It was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Wluerintone. The original Wolverton was a medieval settlement just north and west of today's town. This site is now known as Old Wolverton, although the medieval village is all but gone. The Ridge and Furrow pattern of agriculture can still be seen in the nearby fields and the church still occupies the Norman Motte and Bailey site. The newer area built for the railways in the 19th century assumed the Wolverton name.
Wolverton is also intersected by the Grand Union Canal and in the 19th century became a town of some importance for the national rail network as carriages and engines for trains were constructed here. A station in Wolverton was opened in 1845 by Queen Victoria, it has since been replaced in a new location.
Wolverton Works, divided from Wolverton by a wall that extended almost completely along the front of the town and which still bears visible traces of the paint that was used to camouflage it during the Second World War, is the name of the yards and buildings used for the work on the trains and coaches and was a major employer in the area for many years. Along with the regular stock handled by the Works, the Royal trains and coaches used by the Queen on various occasions are housed here in the care of Alstom who operate the remaining railway service depot. The most recent Royal railway saloons were fitted out at Wolverton in 1977.