Stoke Mandeville is a village to the south of Aylesbury in the county of Buckinghamshire. It is a very wealthy parish, with a large amount of arable land within its borders; it is also home to the Ludwig Guttman Paraplegic Stadium, home of the World Wheelchair Games and Stoke Mandeville Hospital. The latter boasts the largest spinal injuries ward in Europe.
The village was originally recorded as Stoches in the Domesday Book of 1086, from the Old English word stoc meaning an outlying farmstead or hamlet. The suffix Mandeville was first recorded in 1284 when the manor was listed as being in the hands of the Mandeville family. The former medieval parish church on the outskirts of the village was condemned in the mid Twentieth Century and has now been demolished altogether. The newer red brick parish church of St Mary remains as the only church in the village.
