Aspley Guise
Encyclopedia
Aspley Guise is a village and civil parish located in central Bedfordshire
Central Bedfordshire
Central Bedfordshire is a unitary authority in the ceremonial county of Bedfordshire, England. It was created from the merger of Bedfordshire County Council, Mid Bedfordshire and South Bedfordshire on 1 April 2009...

, England. It is just over the county border from Woburn Sands
Woburn Sands
Woburn Sands is a small town and civil parish that is mainly located in the Borough of Milton Keynes, England, and to the south-east of Milton Keynes itself, near Wavendon...

 in the Borough of Milton Keynes
Milton Keynes (borough)
The Borough of Milton Keynes is a unitary authority and borough in south central England, at the northern tip of the South East England Region. For ceremonial purposes, it is in the county of Buckinghamshire...

 and about 6 miles (9.7 km) by road to Milton Keynes Centre and 1 miles (1.6 km) to the M1
M1 motorway
The M1 is a north–south motorway in England primarily connecting London to Leeds, where it joins the A1 near Aberford. While the M1 is considered to be the first inter-urban motorway to be completed in the United Kingdom, the first road to be built to motorway standard in the country was the...

 London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 to Yorkshire
Yorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...

 motorway junction 13.

Notable buildings

The Rookery, a secluded Victorian mansion in Church Street was used by intelligence operatives during the Second World War, for black propaganda
Black propaganda
Black propaganda is false information and material that purports to be from a source on one side of a conflict, but is actually from the opposing side. It is typically used to vilify, embarrass or misrepresent the enemy...

 against Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

 controlled by Sefton Delmer
Sefton Delmer
Denis Sefton Delmer was a British journalist and propagandist for the British government. Fluent in German, he became friendly with Ernst Röhm who arranged for him to interview Adolf Hitler in the 1930s...

.

It has three historic houses of note: Aspley House, Guise House and the Old House. The first was built in 1695 in the style of Christopher Wren
Christopher Wren
Sir Christopher Wren FRS is one of the most highly acclaimed English architects in history.He used to be accorded responsibility for rebuilding 51 churches in the City of London after the Great Fire in 1666, including his masterpiece, St. Paul's Cathedral, on Ludgate Hill, completed in 1710...

 and altered c. 1750 and again later. In the 18th century, Guise House and its grounds were home to Aspley Classical Academy, a school said to rival Eton and Harrow. The Old House is timbered and dates from 1575 with some Georgian alterations.

The village has many charming examples of early Georgian architecture. The parish church is dedicated to St Botolph.

The village is served by Aspley Guise railway station
Aspley Guise railway station
Aspley Guise railway station is a railway station that serves the village of Aspley Guise in Bedfordshire, England. It is on the Bletchley — Bedford Marston Vale Line.The station is served by London Midland Bletchley — Bedford local services...

, a small station on the Marston Vale Line
Marston Vale Line
The Marston Vale Line is the railway line from Bletchley to Bedford in England. It is one of two surviving passenger-carrying sections of the "Varsity Line" between Oxford and Cambridge....

 running between Bedford
Bedford
Bedford is the county town of Bedfordshire, in the East of England. It is a large town and the administrative centre for the wider Borough of Bedford. According to the former Bedfordshire County Council's estimates, the town had a population of 79,190 in mid 2005, with 19,720 in the adjacent town...

 and Bletchley.

The name derives from "Aspelia De Guise" meaning the aspen clearing of the De Guise family.

'Aspley Guise triangle'

The 'Aspley Guise triangle' is an area of farmland bounded by the A421 to the north and north-east and the Marston Vale line to the south (which separates it from Aspley Guise proper) and Cranfield Road to the west. It has been designated as such in expansion plans for Milton Keynes
Expansion plans for Milton Keynes
In January 2004, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott announced the United Kingdom government's Expansion plans for Milton KeynesHe proposed that the population of Milton Keynes should double in the subsequent 20 years...

, as it would be served by the railway station. In the ministerial ruling on the plan, this area was excluded on the technicality that it is not part of the South East of England Region, though with a hint that it might appear again in an East of England
East of England
The East of England is one of the nine official regions of England. It was created in 1994 and was adopted for statistics from 1999. It includes the ceremonial counties of Essex, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. Essex has the highest population in the region.Its...

 regional spatial strategy.

Following the 2010 United Kingdom general election, the new coalition government cancelled the outgoing Labour government's regional housing targets, so there is no current plan to develop the triangle.

External links

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