Watermead is a suburban development, situated to the north of Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, England. It is a

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 ...

and forms part of the Aylesbury Urban Area.

Housing development

Plans for the village of Watermead were first drawn up in the 1980s. The idea was to create a self-contained executive area that would bring new sports facilities and a better quality of housing to the town. Bandstand and Ducks, Watermead, Aylesbury - geograph

Bandstand and Ducks, Watermead, Aylesbury - geograph

The village is built on

green belt A green belt is a policy and land-use zone designation used in land-use planning to retain areas of largely undeveloped, wild, or agricultural land surrounding or neighboring urban areas. Similar concepts are greenways or green wedges, which ...

land. At the planning stage the designers were required to pay heed to the

ecology Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overl ...

of the local area to help protect the environment. Central to the plans therefore was an extensive lake that would become a haven for

wildlife Wildlife refers to undomesticated animal species, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wild in an area without being introduced by humans. Wildlife was also synonymous to game: those birds and mammals that were hunted ...

and many wild birds. The

water table The water table is the upper surface of the zone of saturation. The zone of saturation is where the pores and fractures of the ground are saturated with water. It can also be simply explained as the depth below which the ground is saturated. T ...

in the

Vale of Aylesbury The Aylesbury Vale (or Vale of Aylesbury) is a geographical region in Buckinghamshire, England, which is bounded by the Borough of Milton Keynes and South Northamptonshire to the north, Central Bedfordshire and the Borough of Dacorum (Hertfordsh ...

is higher than the average in England, on account of extensive water reserves that are stored below the

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4). Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...

bed of the whole vale. The designers of the village took this into account by creating a lake in the centre to allow for rise in water levels. Construction went underway and the first houses were ready for sale in 1986 On the opposite side of the lake from the village was an artificial ski slope. Control over the local water table with flood defences installed and diversions for the

River Thame The River Thame is a river in Southern England. A tributary of the River Thames, the river runs generally south-westward for about from its source above the Buckinghamshire town of Aylesbury to the Thames in south-east Oxfordshire. Course ...

to flood planes on specially dug lakes. The village has grown extensively and has a very active parish council. The ski slope site has been developed and is now Aylesbury Vale Crematorium. Dry Ski Slope, Watermead, Aylesbury - geograph

Dry Ski Slope, Watermead, Aylesbury - geograph

Watermead was voted one of the top villages of its type in the country in the early 1990s and won awards for its design and original ideas. Lake with Ducks, evening

The original Royco theme was designed by architects John Evennett Associates. Blocks of individual homes were built that made walking through each road (each named after a breed of bird) interesting, although this is something that has been lost since newer building designs were erected around Watermead, but predominantly the existing original Royco village are visible from the approach road, and from over the bridge and across the lake.

Transport

Watermead's closest station is Aylesbury with services to

London Marylebone Marylebone station ( ) is a Central London railway terminus and connected London Underground station in the Marylebone area of the City of Westminster. On the National Rail network it is also known as London Marylebone and is the southern te ...

and

High Wycombe High Wycombe, often referred to as Wycombe ( ), is a market town in Buckinghamshire, England. Lying in the valley of the River Wye, Buckinghamshire, River Wye surrounded by the Chiltern Hills, it is west-northwest of Charing Cross in London, ...

. Several buses routes connect Watermead to Aylesbury town centre operated by Rainbow Routes, Redline Buses and

Arriva Arriva plc is a British multinational public transport company headquartered in Sunderland, England.Michael Shrimpton Michael Shrimpton (born 9 March 1957) is an English former barrister and judge who is known for his conspiracy theories and hoaxes. He was convicted in 2014 for falsely reporting that Germany was planning a nuclear attack on the 2012 Summer Oly ...

(former)

References

External links

Watermead Parish Council Website
{{Aylesbury Vale Aylesbury Civil parishes in Buckinghamshire