Cold Brayfield is a village and civil parish in the unitary authority area of the City of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England.[1] It is about 3 miles (4.8 km) east of Olney, 8 miles (13 km) west of Bedford, and 10 miles (16 km) north of Central Milton Keynes on the Bedfordshire border. Nearby places are Lavendon and Turvey (over the bridge on the Bedfordshire side of the River Great Ouse). It is in the civil parish of Newton Blossomville.
Cold Brayfield is probably the place named as 'Bragenfelda' in a charter of 967.[2] The elements of the name, 'brain' and 'field' are interpreted to mean 'open country on the crown of a hill'.[3] The village name is later recorded in twelfth- and thirteenth-century charters as 'Brauefeld', 'Brawefeld' or 'Brauufeld',[4] and becomes 'Cold Brayfield' towards the end of the sixteenth century.[5] The basis for the prefix 'Cold' is not recorded.
The Church of England parish church is dedicated to St Mary the Virgin.[5]
References
- ^ Civil Parish (geographic area) Cold Brayfield Office for National Statistics
- ^ Charters of Abingdon Abbey, ed. S.E. Kelly, 2 parts, Anglo-Saxon Charters VIII (British Academy: Oxford, 2001), part 2, no. 106, pp. 419–21
- ^ E. Ekwall, The Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names, 4th edition (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1960), p. 59; V. Watts, ed., The Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2004), p. 82
- ^ Records of Harrold Priory, ed. G. H. Fowler (Bedfordshire Historical Record Society: Aspley Guise, 1935), pp. 46–53
- ^ a b William Page, ed. (1927). "Parishes : Cold Brayfield". A History of the County of Buckingham. Victoria History of the Counties of England. Vol. 4. London: Constable & Co. Ltd. pp. 323–327.
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