Gipsies Start Off Common Problem (11 November 1977)

I raised an eyebrow at the Gazette’s report that at a meeting of the Milton Keynes Borough’s planning committee, Cllr Charles Head said the piece of land known as Newton Common would make an ideal site for gipsies.  Surely, I thought, Newton Common is part of Newton Longville and Milton Keynes can have no jurisdiction over it?  But I was wrong.  All the latest maps show the triangular piece of land opposite the old Bottle Dump as now being in Milton Keynes.  And in at least one map it is labelled “Newton Longville Football Club.”

Newton Common has kept popping up in the news ever since the 1939-45 war.  During that war it was commandeered and used by the Bucks War Agricultural Committee (“It still plays like a ploughed field,” one Bletchley young man tells me with a grin.  But (be) that as it may, the field is also used by another Newton team – the Crooked Billet).

After the war the committee handed over the common to the parish council.  They also presented a bill.

At first there was much consultation.  Then the search was on for common holders.  They proved difficult to find.  Various reports were made from time to time, but without much progress being made.  Eventually, a number of people, each of whom had at least a certain number of acres in the parish, became the acknowledged common holders and proceeded to handle the affairs of the common.

The present position is so complex that I would not dream of trying to describe it, even if I could.  It involves such questions as whether the common holders are also the common owners; and if not, then which of them are, if any?  I understand there is also a doubt whether this common originated in the ordinary way at all – that is to say, as land which has avoided the process of enclosure.  For I have heard a story that one lord of the manor of Whaddon and Tattenhoe became so weary of complaints about Newton men grazing their animals on roadside verges that he gave this particular field for Newtonians’ use!

The problem has gained enormously in importance and interest with the inclusion of the land in the new city area.  This is thought to have been done so as to enable a new road to be built across part of the land.

The Commons Commission are now working their way round the country and are expected to be able to settle at least part of Newton’s questions – but it could take years yet.  Certainly there will be a great pouring(sic) over Inclosure Awards and maybe much argument when they do arrive in the fine old village.

Some years ago a book about subsidiary Roman roads to the north of London was compiled by a group of men calling themselves and their book the Viatores.  Responsible for the North Bucks section was the late Mr C W Green, a considerable Romanologist, of Wolverton.  In it he claimed and illustrated with a finely detailed map that almost the whole of Buckingham Road was of Roman origin.  He claimed to have proved this by probes in numerous available places along the route.

Going in the Buckingham direction Mr Green’s road diverges from the present road at the bottom of the last slope and instead of veering left to the Bottle Dump it goes straight across the common and rejoins the present road at the point where it goes practically straight to the Mursley-Whaddon crossroads.

If that was the case in Roman times, why was that route abandoned later and how did the Bottle Dump corner come about?  One possibility is that eventually, long after Magiovinium had been forgotten, a way to Newton and thence to Leighton became of more importance than the route to Bletchley.  It is interesting that in the Bletchley Inclosure Award the road to Newton now known as Whaddon Road is described as Leighton Road.  One of the gates to Whaddon Chase was also at that spot.

Another feature of that area is Weasel Lane, the “green lane” that leaves Buckingham Road at Bletchley Leys, crosses Whaddon Road and goes on towards Salden and Mursley.  The Rev F W Bennitt identified this with the “Winchestre-lane” mentioned in the Eton Manor Court Rolls of 1372.  He pointed out Stourbridge, near Cambridge, and Winchester were the great wool fairs of those days and opined that this was part of the established route between the two.

This may well be so.  Then how did it come to be called “Weasel?”  I suggest it had nothing to do with the animals of that name.  When I first made my way along that land over 30 years ago it was unkempt and overgrown.  Conspicuous was the number of teasels, now a weed but at one time valuable for teasing or “tweasing” raw wool and raising a nap on cloth.  I suggest that at one time the name was “tweasel” lane and that it was shortened to “weasel” later.  Twesel Down, near Aldershot, probably has the same derivation.