Drayton Parslow: a Buckinghamshire village of bells, church towers and deep rural memory

Drayton Parslow is a village and civil parish in Buckinghamshire, about 3.5 miles south of Bletchley and close to Milton Keynes, Aylesbury and Leighton Buzzard. It was recorded in the Domesday Book in 1086, and the second part of its name is linked to the Passelaw family, early lords of the manor. For centuries the village was predominantly agricultural, but it also gained a distinctive place in English craft history through the bell-foundry established here in the 17th century, whose bells survive in churches across Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire. The parish church of Holy Trinity, with 12th-century masonry and later Gothic rebuilding, remains the architectural focal point.
Population: 614 inhabitants (2011 census).
Distance: about 3.5 miles south of Bletchley and roughly 10 miles from Aylesbury, Milton Keynes and Buckingham.
Traditions and culture: Drayton Parslow retains the atmosphere of a working Buckinghamshire village, with a strong sense of church, parish and local continuity.
Highlights: Holy Trinity Church, the village green and historic lanes, and the legacy of the Drayton Parslow bell-founders.