Milton Keynes

Milton Keynes is a city of 245,000 people (2019) in the South East of England. Milton Keynes is well known in the UK as a planned city built in the 1960s with emphatically modernist architecture. Milton Keynes is a thriving city of contrasts; from innovative new business and entertainment hubs, to theatre, cinema, walks in natural parkland, pub lunches and peaceful canal trips; and yes, it really does have the famous concrete cows (as well as real ones)!

Understand
Imagine being able to design the perfect city almost completely from scratch. This is the premise under which internationally renowned urban planners and architects set out to create Milton Keynes in the 1960s and '70s. Of course, when mentioning Milton Keynes, people will often be met with "Ugh, it’s a soulless new city" or "What, is that the place with the concrete cows?" Most irritating is that often, the people that make those comments have neither lived there nor indeed spent much time there. Yes, it is a new city and yes, the centre of that city could be described as a little soulless with its chain restaurants and large shopping centre, but it was built on and around land already settled and dotted around the 22,000 acres of countryside it resides in are many things to do, see and explore. Sites dating back to 2000 BC have been unearthed along with the remains of a major Roman villa, then dispersed amongst the city, itself built amongst many old towns. Also are numerous green spaces, a plethora of indoor and outdoor activities, and fabulous shopping opportunities. The Ministry of Housing and Local Governments brief in 1967 requested a new town that could accommodate an incoming population of 150,000 Londoners over a period of 20 years.

The city includes a number of previous settlements and villages including Wolverton, Bletchley and Stony Stratford, all of which have expanded as part of its development. Stony Stratford in particular has fabulous British pubs serving good food and beer, a good variety of quaint shops to browse and beautiful river walks just behind the high street. Stony Stratford claims to be the place where the phrase ‘Cock & Bull Story’ was coined (from the name of two pubs/hotels on the High Street).

Visitor information

 * Destination Milton Keynes

By train


Local and slow services also stop at Wolverton in the north and Bletchley in the south. Trains from Bedford (the Marston Vale line) serve Bletchley and Fenny Stratford. Most local bus services connect with the central train station, with more limited services to Bletchley and Wolverton.



By bus
National Express services provide regular connections with coach services to many cities and regional airports, as well as larger ones such as Heathrow.

Regional coach services are provided linking Northampton, Aylesbury, Oxford and Cambridge, and can be taken from either the railway station, town centre or the, which is located near junction 14 of the M1.

By car
Milton Keynes is on the M1 motorway and on the A5 trunk road. From London, Luton and the south, Milton Keynes can be accessed via junction 13. From Leicester, Northampton and the north, Milton Keynes can be accessed from junction 14.

For east-west connections, the A421 links to Bedford and Cambridge to the east, and Buckingham and Oxford to the west.

The Park and Ride service has 200 buses run every 30 minutes from Central Milton Keynes to MK Coachway (located near junction 14 of the M1) Sunday to Friday and every 15 minutes on Saturdays, see National Park and Ride Directory

By plane
London Luton Airport, 25 miles south via the M1. London Heathrow Airport, 55 miles south via the M1 and M25. London Stansted Airport, 58 miles to the east via the A421 and A1.

Get around
Buses in Milton Keynes are frequent, and all estates are quite well covered. There are regular buses from most places to the city centre, train station, and Bletchley. Travelling by car is usually preferable as one of Milton Keynes's saving graces is its road network, although during rush hour, it can get somewhat congested in some areas.

The dominance of the car is greatly helped by the road layout – the main roads of the city are laid out in a grid system with roundabouts at the intersections, so getting about is quick, although predictably less so in rush hour. The grid is formed of numbered 'H' roads running horizontally on the map and 'V' roads running vertically. Visitors who drive to Milton Keynes often get lost on these roads because they all look the same—the main roads are in tree-lined linear valleys to reduce road noise so there are few landmarks visible to navigate by. A map is recommended for people who are new to the town.

Pedestrians and cyclists have their own network of 'redways' – paths made of red tarmac that broadly follow the grid roads but never meet them, either crossing over or underneath. The redways are a good way to get about. As with any place you are unfamiliar with, caution is advised, and as many of the redways cross minor roads cyclists and those with children should beware of traffic!

The redways are often not well signposted, and that traversing them without a map can lead to you getting lost quite quickly!

See




Do
Milton Keynes has attractions for the adventurous. Willen Lake has a wakeboard tow rope system; the Xscape has an indoor snow slope, a climbing wall and an indoor skydiving tower; the central bus station has a skate park' and the town has also a BMX track at Pineham.
 * Families with younger children might like to head for the Gulliver's Land theme park or Eco Park next door or take a stroll and have a picnic at the nearby Willen Lake.
 * Football:
 * Because of the local value of the car culture, a growing car cruise and meet is staged in the car parks around the Network Rail head office on Sunday nights, and it is popular both with modders and the police.
 * Stony Stratford is worth a visit to experience the more tranquil and traditional side of Milton Keynes. About 10 min from the City Centre by car, you will find a quaint high-street with some quirky independent shops, lots of pubs where you can get good old-fashioned British grub, a pint of beer and warm yourself by a real fire during colder months. If you feel like taking a stroll, you can walk out of the town and take a pleasant stroll along the river.
 * Woburn Village is about a 15-minute car journey from Milton Keynes and is well worth a visit.
 * Stony Stratford is worth a visit to experience the more tranquil and traditional side of Milton Keynes. About 10 min from the City Centre by car, you will find a quaint high-street with some quirky independent shops, lots of pubs where you can get good old-fashioned British grub, a pint of beer and warm yourself by a real fire during colder months. If you feel like taking a stroll, you can walk out of the town and take a pleasant stroll along the river.
 * Woburn Village is about a 15-minute car journey from Milton Keynes and is well worth a visit.

Buy
The Centre: MK is the main shopping centre for the surrounding area and is where most of the shopping in Milton Keynes is to be had. It features branches of many high street chains, with over 230 stores. The centre is undercover with good disabled access.



The High Street in Stony Stratford offers a pleasant but small alternative. Most residential areas have their own convenience store.

There are various retail parks with the larger DIY, carpet, furniture and warehouse-style clothes shops.

Eat
Milton Keynes has a wide variety of restaurants both in the City Centre and in the outlying areas.

In the city centre the restaurants are centred around the theatre district, Xscape and a new area called "The Hub".


 * The Centre: MK, John Lewis restaurant is convenient.
 * The Centre: MK, John Lewis restaurant is convenient.

There is a wider range of smaller independent restaurants in outlying areas such as Stony Stratford, Wolverton, and Fenny Stratford. There is also decent pub food (and somewhat better beer) at The Plough in Simpson, and Ye Olde Swan in Woughton on the Green. Pub grub at the Old Beams in Shenley Lodge can not be beaten.

The Salford Swan, while not in Milton Keynes, is well worth a look for some excellent pub-restaurant food with a delightful atmosphere.

Treat yourself to an English fry-up at Kay’s Kitchen in Stony Stratford.

Drink
On a summer evening a trip to the theatre district or Xscape almost transports you to a Spanish holiday resort, such are the number of bars and clubs with people walking between them. Not much for a CAMRA member here though, as it's more for the bottle of Bud or Smirnoff Ice crowd.

More traditional pubs can be found along the Stony Stratford high street, popular for pub crawls at weekends. Newport Pagnell, a few miles from the city centre, is also a good option with many good pubs and a good atmosphere

The night life
The nightlife (pubs and clubs) in Milton Keynes are focussed around the theatre District, Xscape snow dome and The Hub areas.

Hotels
Milton Keynes offers a variety of chain hotels, including Holiday Inn, Hilton, Ramada, Jury's Inn, Travelodge, and Holiday Inn Express. Some are located in the bustling town centre and others in more peaceful spots, including the Holiday Inn Express adjacent to Willen Lake.



Go next

 * Woburn
 * Buckingham
 * Towcester
 * Bedford