#41 Photograph from Bletchley Park, Block F or Block G, after 1943

Bletchley Park is best known as the secret home of British Code breakers during World War Two.  We have no records from the site during this time...except for a small collection of photographs. The photographs come from the papers of Dorothy Amelia Brown, who lived much of her life at Manor Road, Bletchley. I want to focus on one …

#40 “Insider”, the staff magazine of the Milton Keynes Development Corporation, 1980

In 1980 the Milton Keynes Development Corporation was thirteen years in to its project to build a new town in North Buckinghamshire.  This 201st edition of “Insider”, the organisation’s in-house magazine shows MKDC at an interesting moment. Front page news is an interview with Fred Roche, the General Manager of the Corporation, who had just announced his …

#39 Letter from George Church of Olney, 1845, sent from Tasmania

  At the beginning of 1845 when this letter was written, George Church had been in Tasmania, known then as Van Diemans land, for two years. A labourer accustomed to looking after sheep, he had been sentenced to ten years transportation at the Quarter Sessions in Aylesbury in 1841 for stealing two ewes from his …

#38 Triceratops in the snow

Look at this fellow, defiant in the snow.  In this photograph the dinosaur is standing in Peartree Bridge, where it has become a local landmark since its creation in 1979.  We don't know the date of this snowy scene, but the quality of image leads me to hazard a guess at sometime in the 1990s.  The …

#37 Ravenstone School Curriculum 1903-1904

Ravenstone in 1903 was, as it still is today, a village just south of the border with Northamptonshire.  However in 1903 it was part of the county of Buckinghamshire; now it sits within the Borough of Milton Keynes. Another difference is that in 1903 it had its own school, with two teachers educating the village children of infant and …

#36 Enjoy Your Local Parks, scrapbook, 1984

Milton Keynes was designed with green space as a priority and today there are about 5000 acres of parkland, forest and waterways within the city’s limits. It is hardly surprising that in 1984 the Milton Keynes Development Corporation ran a summer programme of events to promote these parks to its new and growing population. Document …

#35 Register of Electors for Hanslope, 1918

This is a page from the 1918 Register of Electors, listing residents of Hanslope who were eligible to vote in Parliamentary and Local Government elections. The significance of this document lies in the names of the women listed. The Representation of the People Act 1918 extended for the first time the franchise, wholesale to women. …

#34 Poster for Mind Fashion Show, March 1992

In 1992 this day-glow orange poster was created to publicise a fashion show organised by the Milton Keynes branch of the charity Mind. Mind was founded in 1946, and serves to lobby local and national authorities on behalf of people with mental health issues, as well as providing support and advice that same community. All …

Exhibition Update: November-December 2017

Our roving exhibition about the history of the Milton Keynes area continues its tour to the north of the county, for the rest of November and part of December it will be in Buckingham Library. Library details can be found here:  https://www.buckscc.gov.uk/services/libraries/find-a-library/buckingham/

#33 Tyringham-cum-Filgrave Parish Burial Register 1814-2010…Belgian Refugees

In October 1914 circa 250,000 refugees arrived in the UK, fleeing from their homes in Belgium, a country that had just been invaded by Germany.  A recent accession of parish registers from the parish of Tyringham cum Filgrave set us on the trail of one such refugee family who found themselves in the tiny North …