Wolverton

History

The town name is an Old English language word, and means 'Wulfhere's settlement'. 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. The site of the village, castle and church is a scheduled monument. The site of an Anglo-Saxon building has been dated to the 400s at Wolverton Mill, with further buildings coming into use in the 600s and early 700s. An Anglo-Saxon cemetery dated to the 600s was discovered in Wolverton and is the largest discovered in Buckinghamshire containing 83 people. The 12th century Church of the Holy Trinity (rebuilt in 1819) still sits next to the Norman Motte and Bailey site. Only the earth mound remains of the Norman castle, though the Saxon tower still stands as central to the rebuilt church, clad in the early 19th century 'Anglo-Norman' style. Next door to the church is a house built in 1729 which later became the vicarage; the front door has stonework from the nearby, demolished manor house of the 16th century including the de Longueville family coat of arms, and pieces from the earlier church building. A talbot (dog), another symbol of the family, once graced the side entrance which now marks the boundary between the ground floor of the house and its downstairs toilet. The manor of Wolverton was held by the de Wolverton family until the mid-fourteenth century. The elder daughter Margaret or Margery, married John le Hunt, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, and had, in turn, one daughter, Joan le Hunt, who married John Longueville of Billing, Northamptonshire. They had at least one…