Creslow

Creslow (occasionally also known as Christlow) is a village and civil parish within Aylesbury Vale district in Buckinghamshire, England. It is close to Whitchurch, about six and a half miles from Aylesbury. It is in the civil parish of Witchurch.

Creslow
The Old Chapel, Creslow, 2006
Creslow Location within Buckinghamshire
Population	22 (Mid-2010 pop est)[1]
OS grid reference	SP815215
Civil parish	Creslow
Unitary authority	Buckinghamshire
Ceremonial county	Buckinghamshire
Region	South East
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	AYLESBURY
Postcode district	HP22
Dialling code	01296
Police	Thames Valley
Fire	Buckinghamshire
Ambulance	South Central
UK Parliament	Aylesbury

The village name is Anglo Saxon in origin, Cærsehlaw, meaning 'cress hill'. It was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Cresselai.[2]

In the Victorian era and much admired then,[2] there was just one house left in the village, the manor house, which dated from the 14th century.[2] It was then the property of Lord Clifford but has also now disappeared.

The church at Creslow, which dates from the 13th century,[2] was formerly owned by the Knights Hospitaller (the Order of St John of Jerusalem).[2] Following the dissolution of the Monasteries it was held by the Crown, and the whole of the manor was used as pasture for the cattle of the Royal Household. The ecclesiastical parish was abolished by Queen Elizabeth I[2] and the building itself was demolished during the English Civil War, by the regicide Cornelius Holland, and was never replaced.[3]

More recently Creslow was the site of a Foreign and Commonwealth Office/MI6 signals intelligence station, which was closed down in 1998[4] and, now in private hands, operates as a data processing facility and fibre optic hub under the name Creslow Park.