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29 October 2014
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    The Pride of Wolverton

    Wolverton.
    Scenic view of Wolverton

    In the third programme in the new landmark Sense of Place series for Milton Keynes, there's the chance to go behind the wall around Wolverton’s railway works.


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    About 100 years ago Wolverton was a new town in the middle of rural Buckinghamshire, with all the townspeople employed by the railway or McCorquadale’s, the railway printers.

    But in recent years the town has become part of the new city of Milton Keynes.

    It could so easily have simply been absorbed into the new city, but local people have worked long and hard to keep the town alive and to gain heritage status.

    Wolverton.
    Aquaduct at Wolverton

    Clarence Gill believes that Milton Keynes "filched" most of Wolverton’s social activities and organisations, such as the Milton Keynes brass band, which was the Wolverton Band, grown from the railway’s encouragement of musical activities.

    Milton Keynes Coroner Rodney Corner explains how years of exposure to asbestos in the works has led to a higher than average incidence of the industrial disease mesothaelioma. Former works convenor Yvonne Richardson says the men just did not know what they were handling and even rolled up asbestos insulation to use as footballs and cricket balls.

    The present day works may be a shadow of its former self, but it has an assured future in the hands of ‘Alstom Railcare’.

    your comments

    Edward Wolverton
    San Jose ,California,USA
    Thursday, 26-Aug-2004 23:02:55 BST
    I truely loved the articles on Wolverton,[ old-and new] I am reaching out on the net to find my roots- sort of to speak. I am a Direct decendant of Charles Woolverton, who sailed to America with his two brothers, Gabriel, and John,from Dorsetshire, England in 1682. A good friend of George Fox, and William Penn, and to have first settled on Long Island, from which he was removed in 1689 to Burlinton County, West Jersey. The Wolvertons owned the land at one time of Ft. Dix, New Jersey, a now very long history in parts of the United States. I have records reaching back to this era, but nothing much pertaining to the town of wolverton in the UK, except for what I am picking up on the internet. A very well splended job, Thank You. I found a site just last night about Buckinghamshire- and the Wolverton township with a 190 photo's, just flabbergasted me...I never sought to look o! n the internet.[ and I do so much work on here].Thank you again. Edward Wolverton

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