Clifton Reynes is a village and

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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

in the

unitary authority area A unitary authority is a type of local authority in New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Unitary authorities are responsible for all local government functions within its area or performing additional functions that elsewhere are usually performed ...

of the

City of Milton Keynes The City of Milton Keynes is a Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough with City status in the United Kingdom, city status, in Buckinghamshire, England. It is the northernmost district of the South East England Regions of England, Regio ...

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (, abbreviated ''Bucks'') is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-east, Hertfordshir ...

, England.Clifton Reynes

Office for National Statistics The Office for National Statistics (ONS; ) is the executive office of the UK Statistics Authority, a non-ministerial department which reports directly to the Parliament of the United Kingdom, UK Parliament. Overview The ONS is responsible fo ...

It is about a mile east of Olney. It shares a joint parish council with

Newton Blossomville Newton Blossomville is a village in the unitary authority area of the City of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. It is a civil parish, sharing a joint parish council with Clifton Reynes. At the 2011 census, the population of the parish w ...

. It is situated roughly north of

Central Milton Keynes Central Milton Keynes is the central business district of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England and a civil parish in its own right, with a town council. The district is approximately long by wide and occupies some of the highest land in ...

and west of Bedford.

Extent

It is bounded, on the North, by the

River Great Ouse The River Great Ouse ( ) is a river in England, the longest of several British rivers called "Ouse". From Syresham in Northamptonshire, the Great Ouse flows through Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk to drain into the ...

, by which this parish is separated from

Lavendon Lavendon is a village and civil parish in the unitary authority area of the City of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. It is the northernmost village in the Milton Keynes UA and South East England, near Olney, about WNW of Bedford and N ...

and Cold Brayfield; on the East, by Newton-Blossomville; on the South, by Petsoe and

Emberton Emberton is a village and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Unitary authorities in England, unitary authority area of the City of Milton Keynes, in Buckinghamshire, England. The village is near the borders with Northamptonshire and ...

; and on the West, by the latter and by Olney.

Origin of name

The village name comes in two parts: the former name 'Clifton' is

Anglo Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to Ge ...

in origin and means 'Cliff farm', referring to the village's position on a

cliff In geography and geology, a cliff or rock face is an area of Rock (geology), rock which has a general angle defined by the vertical, or nearly vertical. Cliffs are formed by the processes of weathering and erosion, with the effect of gravity. ...

on a bank of the River Ouse. The latter name 'Reynes' refers to the ancient

lords of the manor Lord of the manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England and Norman England, referred to the landholder of a historical rural estate. The titles date to the English Feudalism, feudal (specifically English feudal barony, baronial) system. The ...

of the village, whose

family name In many societies, a surname, family name, or last name is the mostly hereditary portion of one's personal name that indicates one's family. It is typically combined with a given name to form the full name of a person, although several give ...

this was. In 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 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

on 1086 Clifton Reynes was recorded as ''Cliftone''.

Buildings of note

The parish church dedicated to

St Mary Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under various titles such as virgin or queen, many of them mentioned in the Litany of Loreto. ...

is (unusually for a Buckinghamshire church) completely

castellated A battlement, in defensive architecture, such as that of city walls or castles, comprises a parapet (a defensive low wall between chest-height and head-height), in which gaps or indentations, which are often rectangular, occur at intervals t ...

: even the

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

s are

embattled A battlement, in defensive architecture, such as that of city walls or castles, comprises a parapet (a defensive low wall between chest-height and head-height), in which gaps or indentations, which are often rectangular, occur at intervals t ...

. The tower is thought to be

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 9th and 10th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norma ...

; however, the top is later probably 14th century. The majority of the building is of the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries and the nave is unusually tall. Features of interest include the 14th-century font and the medieval monuments of the Reynes family. These include two pairs of wooden effigies; one pair is of Ralph and Amabel de Reynes (ca. 1320–30) and the other is unidentified and slightly earlier.Betjeman, J. (ed.) (1968) ''Collins Pocket Guide to English Parish Churches: the South''. London: Collins; p. 126

References

External links

Villages in Buckinghamshire Areas of Milton Keynes Civil parishes in Buckinghamshire {{Buckinghamshire-geo-stub