BED 



144 



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hill Castle, which Mood in the park of Amplhilt Houte.wai 

 the residence of Catherine of Aragon, queen of Henry VIII. 

 while the business of her divorce was pending. The site of 

 the castle is marked by a cross erected in 1 773 by the Earl 

 of Upper Ossory, who then possessed the domain. \\ uh 

 Araptlull Park is united Houghton Park, in which are the 

 remains of Houirhton House, built by the Countess of Pem- 

 broke, sister of Sir Philip Sidney. There is an alms-house 

 for a reader, twelve poor men, and four poor women, about a 

 mile from Ampthill. Divisional or petty sessions are held 

 at Ampthill ever)' alternate Thursday. 



Harrold. anticntly Harwolde or Harwood (Tanner's Not. 

 Man.), or Harles-wood. (Fuller's H'nrthies <if England.) 

 Tin-, small town is not upon any main road, its distance 

 from London cannot, thercfore.be accurately given, but it is 

 about 9 miles N.W. of Bedford. (Jeflerv's .!/.;;> / Bed- 

 fordshire.) Its market, which is on Thursday, is liitle 

 more than nominal, and the only branch of manufacture 

 carried on in the place is that of lace. There is a bridge 

 over the Ousc with a long causeway. Thti parish church is 

 adorned with a handsome Gothic' spire. The living is a 

 vicarage in the gift of the Earl de Grey. Harrold had once 

 a small priory, built in the reign of Stephen, first both for 

 canons and nuns of the order of St. Nicholas of Arrouasia, 

 but afterwards it consisted only of a prioress, and three or 

 four nuns of the order of St. Augustin. At the Dissolution 

 its tutal income was -1 7/. 3s. .'i/., its clear income Id/. 1 b.v. '.'(/. 

 The site was granted in 1544 to William Lord Parr. (Tan- 

 ner's AW. Stun.) The priory is now a farm-house, the pro- 

 perty of Earl de Grey. The only part of the conventual 

 buildings which remains is the refectory, now a barn called 

 the Hall Barn. 



Sheflbrd is 41 miles from London, and 9 from Bedford. 

 It is on the road between these two, and on the river Ivel. 

 Beside-, a market on Friday, it has four fairs, the two first 

 (on the 23rd of January and Easter Monday) are con- 

 siderable marts for sheep and cows. It is a parochial cha- 

 pelry ; the chapel has been lately much enlarged. There is 

 also an endowed Catholic chapel. The navigation of the 

 Ivel commences here. Robert Bloomfield the poet died 

 here in 1823. At Chicksands near Shefford was a priory of 

 Gilbertines, founded about A.I>. 1150, by Pain de Beau- 

 champ and Roais his wife. Its gross yearly value at the 

 l> - ilution was 230/. ;u. 4rf., the clear yearly value, 

 2I2/. 3s. 5d. (Tanner's Not. Mon.) The site was granted 

 to R. Snow, from whom it came to the Osborn family. The 

 pre-ent residence of the Osborns retains much of the mo- 

 nastic appearance, and indeed consists in part of the remains 

 of the conventual buildings ; this house contains some valu- 

 able portraits. 



Toddington is between Dunstable and Ampthill, about 

 5 miles from Dunstable, and 38 or 39 from London, nearly 

 " miles from Ampthill, and nearly 15 from Bedford. The 

 market, which a century and a half ago was one of the most 

 considerable in the county, has been discontinued, and the 

 market-house pulled down : it has five fairs. The Gothic 

 church contains some antient monuments in its north and 

 south transepts : but these transepts, as well as the monu- 

 ments in them, are in a very dilapidated state. A curious 

 frieze of grotesque animals runs under the eaves of the 

 church roof There was an hospital at Toddington, founded, 

 in the time of Henry VI., in honour of John the Baptist, by 

 John Broughton. It was for a warden, being chaplain, and 

 three poor men. (Tanner s Not. Mon.) There is a Wesleyan 

 meeting-house at Toddington. 



Diviuoiufor Kccletiastical and Legal Purposes. The 

 number of parishes in this county has been already given 

 as 124, hut this will not represent the number of benefices, 

 for several of these have been consolidated. Some of these 

 consolidations are of recent date. Messrs. Lysons (Magna 

 Britannia) state, that of 121 parishes (they probably omit 

 the three that are partly in other counties) 63 are vicarages, 

 the great tithes of which were formerly, with few excep- 

 tions, appropriated to religious houses, and are now in lay 

 haii 



The county is in the diocese of Lincoln, and is under the 

 jurisdiction of the archdeacon of Bedford. It is divided into 

 fix rural deaneries, viz., Bedford, Clapham, Dunstable, 

 Eaton, Fleete, and Sheflbrd. 



It is in the Norfolk circuit. The assizes and sessions are 

 held at Bedford, which is alio the chief place for the election 

 cf the two members for the county. The other polling places 

 for the county are, Sharnbrook in the north, Biggleswade in 



the east, Lcighton Buzzard in the south-west, I.uton in the 

 south, and Ampthill. Besides the two county members, two 

 are returned for the borough of Bedford. 



Civil History and Antii/mltef. At the time of the 

 Roman invasion, Bedfordshire appears to have formed part 

 of the territory of the Cattiuuchlani ; a people conjectured 

 by Camden to be the same as the Canii, mentioned In 

 1'ivsar among the tribes who submitted to him during his 

 second invasion of the island. In common with the other 

 inhabitants of South Britain they fell un.ler the Roman do- 

 mination. Three roads, which may be referred to this pericd, 

 or a still more antient one, crossed this county, ami se\eral 

 camps or earth works still remain. Of the roads, the Wat- 

 ling Street runs in a north- west direction, and commie* in tins 

 county with the high road from London through Dunstablu 

 and Fenny Stratford (Bucks) to Coventry. It was, probably, 

 of British origin, though used and improved by the Romans, 

 who had on it their station of Durocobrivaj (Antoninus), or 

 Forum Diunao (Richard of Circnccster), now DnnstaMe. The 

 Ikening or Ikcneld Street, also of British origin, runs in a 

 south-west direction through Dunstnble. The third road, a 

 Roman military road, coincides with the present high north 

 road from near Baldock to the vicinity of BlggleaWMS, where 

 the modern road makes a bend, while the antient one pursues 

 a more direct course through Tempsford Marsh or Cow ( 

 mon into Cambridgeshire. It is supposed that a Roman 

 road from the Ile of Kly to Cambridge led from the 

 latter place through Bedfordshire towards Fenny Stratford. 

 On the edge of a low range of the Chilterns at Maiden 

 Bower, near Dunstable, are the remains of a British station 

 or town. These remains consist of a vallum, nearly cir- 

 cular, thrown up on a level plain, and inclosing a space of 

 about nine acres. The banks are from eight to fourteen 

 feet high. There is no ditch on the south side, and on the 

 south-west and west only a very small one ; on the north- 

 west is a descent to the meadows. Some have assigned to 

 this work a Saxon or Danish origin. About u mile west- 

 ward of this is another remarkable earth-work, called To- 

 ternhoe Castle. It consists of a lofty circular mount, with a 

 slight vullum round its base, and a larger one of an irregular 

 form at some distance from it. On the south-east side of 

 this is a camp, in the form of a parallelogram, about Situ feet 

 long, and 250 feet wide (the length extending from north- 

 west to south-east), secured on three sides by a vallum and 

 ditch (very entire on the south-east side), and protected on 

 the fourth (the south-west) side by a precipitous descent. 

 The irregular work is supposed to have been of British, and 

 the parallelogram of Roman origin. At or near the village 

 of Sandy, or Salndy, about three miles north of Biggleswade, 

 is supposed to have been the British or Roman town called 

 luXr/r.ii by Ptolemy, and Salinas in the Chotography of 

 the anonymous geographer of Ravenna. A large Roman 

 camp (once perhaps a British post), called popularly Casar's 

 Camp, may be traced in the immediate vicinity of this 

 place. It is of irregular form, being adapted to the summit 

 of the hill, and incloses about thirty acres. There are cir- 

 cular inclosures of earth on the heath near Lcighton Bu//ard, 

 and at about four miles east of Bedford near the road to 

 Great Barford and Eaton-Socon. The last is small, but of 

 considerable height, with openings on the north and south 

 sides, resembling an amphitheatre. 



In the contest maintained by the Britons against their 

 Saxon invaders, and again by the Saxons against the en- 

 croachments of the Danes, Bedfordshire appears to have 

 been the scene of violent contest. At Bedford a battle as 

 fought in 471, 572, or 580, between Cutha, or Cuthwulf, 

 brother of Ceaulin, or Cealwin, King of the West Saxons, 

 and the Britons: in which the latter were routed, and lost, 

 in consequence of their defeat, four principal towns, one of 

 which was Lygeanburgh, supposed to be Leighton in this 

 county. Yet although this success was gained by the West 

 Saxons, the county was comprehended in the subsequently 

 formed kingdom of Merr.ia. founded by a body of Angle?. 

 Olfa, King of the Mercians, is said to have been buried at 

 Bedford ; but his sepulchre was carried away by an inunda- 

 tion of the Ouse. In the Danish wars Bedford suffered 

 severely, having indeed been ruined by those fierce invaders ; 

 hut it was repaired by Edward the Elder, son and succi --! 

 of Alfred the Great. The same prince afterwards besieged 

 and took Temesford, now Tcmpsford, which the Danes had 

 fortified. In 100'J and 1010, during the war between 

 Ethelred II. and Swcyn, King of Denmark, the Danes in- 

 vaded this county. In the latter of these years they burnt 



