East Claydon is a village and is also a civil parish in the Aylesbury Vale district of Buckinghamshire, England. It is about 21⁄2 miles (4 km) miles south west of Winslow.
The village name 'Claydon' is Anglo Saxon in origin, and derives from the Old English: clægig + dun meaning 'clay hill'. The affix 'East' is used to differentiate the village from nearby Steeple Claydon and Middle Claydon, and from the hamlet of Botolph Claydon that lies within the parish of East Claydon.
The rural village of around 75 houses currently includes a primary school and a volunteer-run pub and also features a distinctive thatched tree with seating around the base. The village hall has a bell tower, the bell of which is known as 'the mushroom', in reference to its shape. This is also reflected in the name of the pub 'The Mushroom Club'.
The parish church dedicated to St Mary was demolished during the English Civil War by Cornelius Holland, one of King Charles's judges, but was rebuilt after the restoration. The current structure is largely of 18th century design, but comprises components from various centuries, the earliest of which is the 13th century.
East Claydon School is a mixed, community, infant school, which takes children from the age of four through to the age of seven, when they generally move to a school in Steeple Claydon or Winslow. The school is quite small, with approximately thirty pupils.
Famous quotes containing the word east:
“At length, having come up fifty rods off, he uttered one of those prolonged howls, as if calling on the god of loons to aid him, and immediately there came a wind from the east and rippled the surface, and filled the whole air with misty rain, and I was impressed as if it were the prayer of the loon answered, and his god was angry with me; and so I left him disappearing far away on the tumultuous surface.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)