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High Street Kate Davies April 2011 Royal Wedding

Visit the Area

Welcome to Stony Stratford, the Jewel of Milton Keynes! Click here to find your way to the town.  Whilst part of one of the fastest-growing new cities in Britain, Stony Stratford has its own style and charm, and retains its character as a lively market town.

As well as hosting around 350 small independent businesses, Stony reveals its long and fascinating history in the form of historic coaching inns (where else would you ride a Cock Horse to Banbury Cross from?), delightful, and sometimes quirky, architecture, and local legends such as the house still standing in the High Street that Richard III secured the young uncrowned Edward V to seal his fate in The Tower of London, or the former pub where Dick Turpin and his horse were winched to an upper storey to hide from the law. Stony is also the origin of the “Cock & Bull Story” phrase, and home to The Cock & Bull Society.

Many of its residents are writers, artists and musicians, drawn to the town by its colourful history, beautiful Georgian architecture, its mix of traditional and individual speciality shops, famous and amazing choice of pubs and restaurants just down one street!

With a fine catalogue of arts, music and literature festivals, a rich variety of entertainment and social events, and a Christmas lights display the envy of the area, it is an almost magical place to live in or visit. All these elements combine to give the town an atmosphere and liveliness rarely found outside London. Mentioned in Shakespeare, it has been visited by the most famous personalities in British history, including a number of kings and queens; the diarist Samuel Pepys; the writers Charles Dickens; Defoe and George Eliot; Samuel Johnson, the compiler of the world’s first dictionary; and famous preacher John Wesley, who addressed local people under the old elm tree, now replaced by a new oak tree in the Market Square.

At the peak of its era as one of country-region’s premier coaching stops, Stony Stratford would have been a place of great bustle. At one point, 35 stage coaches were passing through the town each day and there were more than 60 inns to provide accommodation, food and a change of horses. You can find out so much more about Stony Stratford’s great historic past by visiting the Living Archive and the Milton Keynes Heritage Association websites.