Wingrave

Wingrave is a village within in Buckinghamshire, England. It is about four miles north east of Aylesbury, three miles south west of Wing. The civil parish called Wingrave and Rowsham within Aylesbury Vale district incorporates the hamlet of Rowsham.

Wingrave is twinned with La Bouëxière in France.

Etymology
Its name occurs in the Domesday Book as Withungrave and in 1163 as Wiungraua. It comes from Old English Wiwinga grāf or Wēoinga grāf = "the grove of the people referred to by Wing, Buckinghamshire" or "the grove of the people of the heathen temple".

Architecture
Around the recreation ground and in other parts of the village are many houses and cottages of varying sizes, constructed in neo-Tudor style, erected by Hannah de Rothschild in the 19th century. These houses, which display her personal cypher 'H de R' were homes for estate employees. They remained part of the Mentmore Estate until well into the 20th century and are very sought after today, commanding a very high price.

Wingrave Manor, also known as 'The Old Manor House' is a Victorian half timbered pastiche of nearby Ascott House. Like many of the village's cottages it too was built by Hannah de Rothschild in 1876. Why she built a large house barely two miles from her own home Mentmore Towers (one of the largest mansions in Buckinghamshire) can only be the subject of conjecture. The design of the house while similar to Ascott, does not have the same lightness of touch as Ascott, so is unlikely to have been designed by Ascott's architect George Devey. The Rothschild family do not appear to have ever lived at Wingrave, as the house was soon let to the Stewart-Freeman Family who enlarged it in 1885 and eventually purchased it in 1898.

Czech Connection
It was the last Stewart-Freeman daughter, Mary Eveline, Countess of Essex, (who was divorced from the Earl of Essex) who leased the house (Wingrave manor), to the exiled Czechoslovak government. They leased it for £20 a week as a residence for the employees and families of the Private Office of President Beneš (called the Chancellery). During this time the President Dr. Edvard Beneš lived at The Abbey in nearby Aston Abbotts, and his Military Intelligence of the exiled government lived at Addington House in nearby Addington, near Winslow. The offices of the Czechoslovak Government in Exile were at various locations in London.

President Beneš donated a bus shelter to the villages of Aston Abbotts and Wingrave in 1944. This is on the A418 between the two villages. Following the departure of President Beneš's officials in 1945, the Manor was leased to an order of nuns who cared for disabled children on the site for over twenty-five years. In 1998 President Václav Havel, the first post-communist President of the Czech Republic, visited Wingrave to mark its Czech connections.

Wingrave C of E Combined School
Wingrave C of E Combined school is the only primary school in the village, and takes children from Wingrave, Cublington, Rowsham and Aston Abbotts. The current site was built in 1974, after the old schools at Wingrave and Aston Abbotts closed. It teaches around 100 pupils from the ages of 4 to 11. The current Headteacher is Pat Gurton. The primary school has very close links to the church. Every year the school travels to the Parish Church for a Harvest festival. There at the age of 11, the pupils move to either Cottesloe School in Wing or a selective school in Aylesbury.

MacIntyre School
In 1972 the Manor was sold and today is the MacIntyre School. The school cares for children described as having complex learning difficulties and was greatly supported by Bob Monkhouse during his lifetime.

Churches
Wingrave has a parish Church of St Peter and St Paul,where Rev Derek Witchell is Reverend. Wingrave also has a Methodist church at Nup End. The former URC Church closed in 2005, although the Congregational churchyard remains as a memorial garden.