Many people who have visited Central Milton Keynes for a night out in recent years will have heard of the Secklow Hundred, but for most it will have just been another outlet of the popular drinking establishment Weatherspoon.
But as you can see from the picture above it means a lot more than a cheap beer and something to eat, its actually the name of an area located directly behind the main central library. A Hundred was a local meeting place, a kind of market/government locations between landowners in Anglo-Saxon and medieval England times. Though not 100% original the present day Hundred was 'excavated' in 1978, and measures 24m in diameter and up to 1m high, a tree sits and the centre of the area and a extremely faded information board nearby shows what it might have looked like in the past. I visited the site a couple of years ago and thought i must have just gone at a bad time, with the grass heavily overgrown and weeds taking over, but today was even worse. To find the above commemorative plaque i had to push back some very thick bushes which had been given the chance to grow over it. Also around the site is examples of people sleeping rough, with even an abandoned tent in the hedges and lots of empty beer cans and empty rolls tinfoil nearby. It shocks me that a site which has been given scheduled status and is so close to both the main civic office and library is allowed go down hill as much as this has. especially when areas of grassland nearby are so well kept. Date first scheduled: 23-Dec-1991
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