Stoke Goldington

Stoke Goldington is a village typical of North Buckinghamshire with many light coloured stone and thatched roof houses. Today they stretch out along a road that in the early 1800's was a main coach road between London and the North.

The ancient inhabitants lived at the top of Dag Lane, close to St Peter's Church. The word 'Stoke' means stockade, and refers to an Iron Age site defended by earthworks that the Norman church was later built upon, and traces of which survive around Church Farm.

Local knight Peter de Goldington, a man of Norman descent, provided the other half of the name around the year 1200. In 1753, the village had 7 coaching inns along the turnpike road where horses were changed and travellers could stay overnight.

The village was prosperous in this service industry and also contained businesses in lace and clay pipe making. At the height of its prosperity in 1830, 22 stagecoaches a day went through the village between 2.00am and 11.30pm, with the royal mail coaches going to and from the General Post Office in the Strand and the north.

As the coaching trade declined with the development of canals and railways, most inns became farms, and the only one still