My home

I live on the very modern estate of Furzton in Milton Keynes. Much of it was build in the 1980s and 1990s. The lake (which is superb for bird watching; or walking) was built to ensure that flooding down the Loughton Brook was avoided. But, as I've mentioned in earlier posts, it has a heritage going back before the Romans arrived. I live only yards from an iron age settlement - and the major Roman Road we now refer to as Watling Street is the Eastern boundary.

The map below (which if clicked expands), is a hand drawn map of the Furzton area from the 16th Century. In the top left hand corner is the small village of Shenley Brook End. The three streams which flow into today’s Furzton Lake can be seen. The most northerly is the stream which flows through Shenley Brook End, which now flows into the Lake near the car park in Shirwell Crescent. The second, which has the name “Chaldwell” under it – now runs through the northern part of Emerson Valley, meeting the lake at its most westerly point. The third now divides North Furzton from South Furzton. Alford bridge is where Watling Street crossed the main stream. It may be the same Hertford Bridge that Sir Frank Markham writes about as the scene of a robbery in June 1766 that led to the rector of Tingewicke pursuing and fatally shooting the highwayman. He was acquitted of manslaughter.