Anciently the village was in the county of Buckinghamshire, though was annexed to Milton Keynes in the administrative boundary changes of 1995.
The village name 'Linford' is Anglo Saxon in origin, and means 'ford where maple trees grow'. The affix 'Great' was added later to differentiate between this village, and nearby Little Linford. In the Domesday Book of 1086 the village was recorded as Linforde.
Great Linford was also home to Sir William Pritchard in the later part of that century, who was president of St Bartholomew's Hospital in London. He founded almshouses in Great Linford, which are still there today.
"GreatLinford, or Linford Magna, is bounded, on the North and North-East, by Newport; on the East and South-East, by Wyllein, or Willen, and Woolston; on the South, by Bradwell; and on the West, by Stanton Barry.
War memorials in GreatLinford have been transcribed by Peter Quick, and published in a booklet entitled "War Memorials and War Graves: Milton Keynes and Wolverton area, Volume 6", available from the Buckinghamshire Genealogical Society.
GREATLINFORD, in the hundred and deanery of Newport, lies nearly three miles to the south-west of Newport Pagnell.