Wraysbury

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Wraysbury (archaic spelling Wyrardisbury) is a village in Berkshire, England. It is located in the very east of the county, in the part that was in Buckinghamshire until 1974. It sits on the northern bank of the River Thames, situated some 22 miles (35 km) west of London.

The village name is Anglo Saxon in origin and means 'Waerheard's town'. In the Domesday Book of 1086 the village was recorded as Wyrardisbury. A nearby pub, the Bells of Ouseley in Old Windsor, refers to another archaic spelling of Wraysbury.

The parish church of St Andrew is a Gothic structure, between Norman and Early English, supposed to have been built by King John. The register dates from the year 1734. On the Ankerwycke estate in the village are the ruins of a Benedictine nunnery, founded in the reign of King Henry II.

The village was a portion of hunting grounds when the Saxons kings resided at Old Windsor. New Windsor was built in 1110 by King Henry I and he moved in, in 1163. The lands around Wraysbury were held by a number of noblemen.

Magna Carta Island, in the parish of Wraysbury, was possibly the location of the sealing of the Magna Carta in 1215.

The village has two railway stations, Wraysbury railway station and Sunnymeads railway station on the line from Windsor to London Waterloo.

Christine Keeler is a former English model and showgirl. Her involvement with a British government minister discredited the Conservative government of Harold Macmillan in 1963, in what is known as the Profumo Affair. Born in Uxbridge, Middlesex, England, she was raised by her mother and stepfather in two converted railway carriages in the Berkshire village of Wraysbury.