Stansted Mountfitchet
Coordinates: 51 ° 54 ' N , 0 ° 12' E
Stansted Mountfitchet is a village in the English county of Essex , around 50 kilometers northeast of London , near the town of Bishop's Stortford and the border with Hertfordshire . It has 5533 inhabitants (as of 2001) and belongs to the district of Uttlesford . The London Stansted Airport , which is only a few kilometers away, derives its name from the village.
history
The village was founded by the Anglo-Saxons , the name means "stony place" in Old English . After the invasion of the Normans in 1066 , the place received the addition Mountfitchet (after a baron who settled here). Built in the 11th century and later derelict, Stansted Mountfitchet Castle was restored in the 1980s.
During World War II , the United States Air Force built an airfield east of the village. After the end of the war, it was taken over by the British government and converted into a commercial airport.
One of the local attractions is the House on the Hill Toy Museum , the largest toy museum in Europe. It opened next to the castle in 1991 and displays over 80,000 different toys from the 1950s to the 1980s.
