10 Facts About Stoke Mandeville

Stoke Mandeville is a village and civil parish in the Vale of Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, England.

The hospital has the largest spinal injuries ward in Europe, and is best known internationally as the birthplace of the Paralympic movement; the Stoke Mandeville Games, instituted in the hospital by Sir Ludwig Guttmann in 1948 evolved to become the first Paralympic Games in Rome in 1960, which were the 9th Stoke Mandeville Games.

Stoke Mandeville was joint host of the 1984 Summer Paralympics with New York, with the wheelchair elements of the Games being held in the village.

The village of Stoke Mandeville remains by far the smallest official host of a modern Olympic or Paralympic Games.

The suffix Stoke Mandeville was first recorded in 1284 when the manor was listed as being in the hands of the powerful Norman de Stoke Mandeville family.

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Stoke Mandeville was the location of the Stoke Mandeville Games, which first took place in 1948 thanks to doctor Ludwig Guttmann and are now known as the IWAS World Games.

The Games, which were held eight times at Stoke Mandeville, were the inspiration for the first Paralympic Games, called The Stoke Mandeville Games, which were organised in Rome in 1960.

The London 2012 Summer Paralympics mascot, Stoke Mandeville, was named after the village due to its legacy with the Games.

Stoke Mandeville Stadium was developed alongside the hospital and is the National Centre for Disability Sport in the United Kingdom, enhancing the hospital as a world centre for paraplegics and spinal injuries.

Stoke Mandeville Combined School is a mixed community school which takes children from the age of four through to the age of eleven.