Great Brickhill - Modern Great Brickhill

Modern Great Brickhill

That Great Brickhill survives today as a village is due in no small part to the objections of its residents to the ever-increasing development of Milton Keynes. This new city on the doorstep of Great Brickhill comes closer every year: already parts of the parish have been swallowed. It may be that this will one day be Great Brickhill's fate too. Conversely, and to much local amusement/bemusement, a speculator recently bought a tract of agricultural land near the village and resold it at enormous profit as individual plots that might one day become part of the city. This was despite the fact that the land does not have planning permission for any such use and the relevant local authorities say that it will never receive such permission.

The high brick wall, reminiscent of that at nearby Woburn, which runs for some distance adjacent to the road, now neglected and ruined in places, surrounds the 70-acre (280,000 m²) park which once housed the principal seat of the Duncombe family, Great Brickhill Manor. The last manor house to occupy this park was built circa 1835, a large square brick stuccoed building of no particular architectural merit – old photographs show a slight Italianate influence in the design, a style later made popular by Queen Victoria at Osborne House. This house was demolished in 1937 after serving for a time as Stratton Park Preparatory School.

The Duncombe family (the head of whom since 1859 has been a Baronet) continue to live in the village and own the estate; however, they now reside at what used to be the old Rectory near the church. Ironically the rectory is shielded from the empty site of the family's former more splendid home by a battlemented folly wall, built by a former Duncombe who disliked the vicar so much that he did not wish to see him or his home!

The parish church of St. Mary the Virgin is a Grade II* listed building, dating back to the 13th century.

Another large house in the area was Stockgrove, built in the 1920s on the site of a much older mansion (see "Magnus Britannia" above) this Georgian-style house was built by the industrialist Sir Ferdinand Kroyer-Kielberg. The estate was divided and sold in the 1950s. The house for a time became a 'Special School' and in the 1990s was divided into luxury apartments.

Great Brickhill today has only one shop: like so many other villages its bakery and post office are long closed. It has a local public house, the 'Old Red Lion'.

The village primary school is High Ash Church of England Combined School, which is a mixed, voluntary controlled, Church of England school. It takes children from the age of four through to the age of twelve and has approximately 240 pupils. It is one of several Buckinghamshire schools which host mobile phone masts. Contracts between Buckinghamshire County Council and various mobile phone operators generate an income of £145,000 per annum, of which about £59,000 comes from contracts for masts that are installed in schools.