During the late 1870s and early 1880 large areas of the village were bought by Arthur Macnamara who built at this time the manor house, and transformed the village into a typical Victorian estate village. The village school, halfway up the hill, was built at this time. It closed in the 1950s. In the early 20th century a point-to-point course was built on the estate, people came from all over England to attend the race meeting held there. Edward VIII when Prince of Wales was a frequent competitor at the races. The races discontinued after World War II. Use of the name Great Billington Mapmakers, from Thomas Jefferys in 1765 to the Ordnance Survey in 2006, have consistently written the word "Billington" next to the settlement by the church and the words "Little Billington" next to the hamlet of that name. In the 1990s, there was a campaign by villagers to use the name "Great Billington", with a claim that it was always used historically. This is not the case in most books on local history and place-names, but there are examples of earlier use in a will dated 1543, Kelly's Directory ("comprising Great and Little Billington"), the Victoria County History ("hamlets of Great and Little Billington"), and the Royal Mail Postcode Directory (either "Great" or "Little" in the official postal addresses). As a result of the campaign, the county council unveiled a new "Great Billington" village sign on 20 June 1997, and some of the road signs at entrances to the settlement now use the name. On 1 September 1998 the parish was renamed from "Billington" to "Great Billington". "Great Billington" has been used as the name of the whole civil parish, but the parish council now uses the name "Billington" again. The ecclesiastical parish is called "Billington". On 1 April 2019 the parish was renamed from "Great Billington" back to "Billington". 2012 slavery case On 11 July 2012, four members from one family were convicted of keeping workers in a state of servitude and forcing them to perform unpaid work. The family, who lived on one of the three travellers' sites in Little Billington, were found to have controlled, exploited, verbally abused and beaten the men for financial gain. The case was the first successful conviction under new slavery laws, following their introduction in 2010. The men, many of them homeless and addicted to alcohol or other drugs,