Walton Hall manor house located on the Open University campus.

Walton Hall is a district in Milton Keynes, in the English county of Buckinghamshire, and is the location of the campus and offices of The Open University.[1] The university campus covers 45 hectares (110 acres)[2] and the first buildings were designed by Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew in 1969.[citation needed]

It is in the ancient ecclesiastic and modern civil parish of Walton. In the university campus grounds are the manor house (Walton Hall), which gives the district its name, and the ancient parish church of St Michael, now deconsecrated.[3] The village farm-lands are divided between Walton Hall, the modern Walton, Kents Hill and Walnut Tree.

The manor house itself, built in 1830 in the Regency style for the Pinfold family, is home to the vice-chancellor's offices of the Open University.[4]

Walton Hall is on the banks of the Ouzel, a tributary of the Great Ouse where Walton Lake, a disused balancing lake, has become naturalised and is home to reeds, bulrushes, reed warbler, reed bunting, water rail, sparrowhawk, kestrel, green woodpecker, grass snake and many varieties of odonata.[5] Surrounding the reedbed are ponds and open water, ancient hedgerows and hay meadow.

References

  1. ^ "Milton Keynes Campus". The Open University.
  2. ^ "Biodiversity at Walton Hall Campus". Estates Division, The Open University. 19 December 2016. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
  3. ^ A church existed here in 1225, but the structure of that period was entirely rebuilt about the middle of the 14th century, the date of the present chancel and nave. from 'Parishes : Walton', Victoria History of the Counties of England A History of the County of Buckingham: Volume 4 (1927), pp. 485-489. Date accessed: 20 September 2010.
  4. ^ Woodfield, Paul (1986). A guide to the historic buildings of Milton Keynes. Milton Keynes: Milton Keynes Development Corporation. ISBN 978-0903379052.
  5. ^ "Walton Lake". The Parks Trust. 2021.

See also

52°01′26″N 0°42′32″W / 52.024°N 0.709°W / 52.024; -0.709


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