Gawcott is a village about south-west of
Buckingham in the
Buckinghamshire district in the ceremonial county of
Buckinghamshire, England. The village is in the
civil parish
In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...
of Gawcott with Lenborough.
History
The
toponym
Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of '' toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage and types. Toponym is the general term for a proper name of ...
is derived from the
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...
for "cottage for which rent is payable". The ''
Domesday Book
Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manus ...
'' of 1086 records the village as ''Chauescote''. Although an alternative description for the name of Gawcott, comes from the old Norse word for the Cuckoo 'Gaukr', pronounced Gawk and 'cott' for house/ home/ cottage. This explanation has some merit as in the west of the village the cuckoo was the prevalent bird up until the early 1940s when much of its habitat was destroyed to make space for servicemen in the second world war. One of the local historic public houses of the village was also named the Cuckoo's nest.
Sir George Gilbert Scott
Sir George Gilbert Scott (13 July 1811 – 27 March 1878), known as Sir Gilbert Scott, was a prolific English Gothic Revival architect, chiefly associated with the design, building and renovation of churches and cathedrals, although he started ...
, the architect of the
Midland Grand Hotel
Midland may refer to:
Places Australia
* Midland, Western Australia
Canada
* Midland, Albert County, New Brunswick
* Midland, Kings County, New Brunswick
* Midland, Newfoundland and Labrador
* Midland, Ontario
India
* Midland Ward, Kohima, N ...
at
St Pancras railway station in London (and numerous other buildings), was born in Gawcott where his father, the Reverend Thomas Scott (1780–1835), was
perpetual curate
Perpetual curate was a class of resident parish priest or incumbent curate within the United Church of England and Ireland (name of the combined Anglican churches of England and Ireland from 1800 to 1871). The term is found in common use mainly du ...
.
Signal Hill
To the east of the village is Signal Hill, which was a former
FCO/
MI6
The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...
signals intelligence station.
See also
*
Sefton Delmer
Denis Sefton Delmer (24 May 1904, Berlin, Germany – 4 September 1979, Lamarsh, Essex) was a British journalist of Australian heritage and propagandist for the British government during the Second World War. Fluent in German, he became friendl ...
References
External links
{{authority control
History of telecommunications in the United Kingdom
Military history of Buckinghamshire
Villages in Buckinghamshire