396 



BEDFORDSHIRE. 



Cediord- 

 shire. 



Bedfordshire, but at present the only pit (or rather 

 mine, as it is now worked) which is in use, is near 

 Hogstyend, in a point of land in Wavendon, which 

 bends round in rather an extraordinary way into the 

 parish of Aspleyr The demand for this article, once 

 so highly prized by the clothiers of this and other 

 countries, has dwindled almost to nothing within 

 twenty or thirty years past. The very great accu- 

 mulation of alluvial clays on the Caxton range in 

 Cambridgeshire, and these again between Leighton- 

 Busard and Winslow in Buckinghamshire, almost en- 

 tirely bury and conceal these sand strata for many 

 miles on each side of Bedfordshire. 



The chinch clay, so called by Mr Smith from se- 

 veral thin beds near to its top and to the Woburn or 

 fullers-earth sand, which this clay underlays, of a 

 soft perishable stone, much resembling hurlock, or 

 hard chalk, when fresh dug, is the thickest of the 

 Bedfordshire strata ; and by its peculiar property of 

 ending by various steps, or, as it has been termed, fea- 

 thering out, instead of ending at once in a bold range 

 of hill, (as is the character of many strata to do, 

 like the chalk and the Woburn sand, for instance,) 

 this stratum forms the vale of Bedford, extending 

 for several miles on the south side of that town, to 

 the vale of Newport-Pagnell, which extends in like 

 manner S. and S. W. of that town, to the foot of 

 the sand hills, and most of the flats occupied by the 

 fens of Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire, as has been 

 noticed by Mr Parey in the Philosophical Magazine, 

 vol. xxxvl. p. 105 ; also in vol. xxxv. p. 259, where 

 this stratum is supposed to produce alum at Whitby 

 and other adjacent parts of Yorkshire. The great 

 thickness of this chinch clay, of a blue or dark 

 colour, perhaps 500 feet, and its peculiar mode of 

 ending, occasions it to occupy near half of the sur- 

 face of the county of Bedford, from near Aspley- 

 Guise to Everton, and north-west of this. In some 

 parts of this thick stratum, there are beds of bitumi- 

 nous argillaceous schist, which will burn like a very 

 bad coal; and has given rise to an opinion in most of 

 the counties where it ranges, that seams of coal might 

 be discovered at greater depths ; but none such exist, 

 nor indeed any of the real indications of coal seams. 

 Near Elston and in Goldington, coal has been sus- 

 pected to exist, by those unacquainted with the sub- 

 ject. Other beds, very friable and black, which are 

 found in other situations in this stratum, have been 

 mistaken for marie, but found, on trial, to want its 

 valuable qualities, as an ameliator of the soil. It is 

 perhaps to the basset of 'hese beds, that the " wood- 

 land soils" of this county are owing, whose black 

 and friable mould would, at certain seasons, impress a 

 stranger with the opinion of good land ; but no 

 sooner does heavy or continued rains come, than the 

 most tenacious paste imaginable is formed ; while in 

 every drought after frost, the whole is puffed up like 

 a sponge in lightness, and it is blown away from the 

 roots of the corn by the wind, often to the entire de- 

 struction of the crop ; and if in this state a sudden 

 shower falls, it washes away this dust before it, into 

 the furrows and ditches, almost in an caual degree. 

 On these soils, and on the colder parts of the alluvial 

 clay, particularly the steep sides of the hills, in the 



northern and middle parts of the country, there are 

 perhaps (5500 acres of ancient woods, besides about 

 500 on the sand, and where also extensive plantations 

 of the fir tribes have been made within the last 80 

 years, and within the last 20 in particular. 



The Bedford limestone strata, already mentioned 

 in speaking of that town, are the lowest which ap- 

 pear in Bedfordshire, unless perhaps :ome of the 

 blue clay which underlays them, may appear in the 

 extreme northern parts of the county. They consist 

 of several compact beds of stone, with clay, some- 

 times whitish, but oftener dark blue or black inter- 

 posed ; and are laid bare, or partially cut through, by 

 the excavation of the vale of the Ou=c, from near Gol- 

 dington, N. E. of Bedford town, along all its deviou? 

 courae, to Newport Pagnel, or a little north of it, 

 Stoney-Stratford, and Buckingham. In Puddington, 

 Wimmington, Melshburn, Yelding, Dean, am! 

 ton, the regular basset or out-crop of the Bedford 

 limestone appears, and the excavation of the valley 

 through Risley has also laid it bare therein. 



Nearly round the town of Woburn, except on the 

 south side, there ranges an immense fault or gulf in 

 the sand strata, which is close filled up with alluvial 

 clay and chalk ruins, that is in some places 100 yards 

 wide, and goes completely through the sand at least, 

 as is evident from the plentiful springs of water held 

 up within it, (and which doubtless gave rise to the 

 present site of the town,) while without this clay 

 gulf there is dry sand to the depth of 70 or 100 

 feet, in wells which have been sunk. On the north 

 of this town, and extending downwards to Crawley 

 church and mill, there is a large tract of the strata 

 sunk, from 50 to perhaps 200 feet in some places, 

 below all the surrounding sand, and the clay at its 

 north border. 



The Ouse, with the Ivell, the Ouzel, and other 

 small rivers and brooks which fall into it, form the 

 principal waters of Bedfordshire, which is without 

 any natural lakes or artificial reservoirs or ponds of 

 water of any magnitude, except in the parks at Wo- 

 burn, Wrest, and Chicksands. There are mineral 

 springs at Bromham, Clapham, Cranfield, Holcutt, 

 Oakley, Turvey, Wrest -gardens, &c. but they are 

 little it at all used. The Ouse is navigable for boats 

 up to Bedford, with a branch to Biggleswade, which 

 is intended to be carried up the vale of the Ivell toShef- 

 ford, according to an act long since obtained for this 

 purpose. The grand junction canal skirts this coun- 

 ty for about 3 miles, near Leighton-Busard, but 

 it can scarcely be said to enter it. 



Bedfordshire is within the Norfolk circuit of 

 judges : it is within the diocese of Lincoln, and under 

 the jurisdiction of an archdeacon, and is divided inte 

 six deaneries, viz. Bedford, Clapham, Dunstable, 

 Eaton, Fleete, and Shefford ; Woburn parish, form- 

 ing a peculiar jurisdiction under the duke of Bedford, 

 as the lay abbot of Woburn. 



It returns two members to serve in parliament, 

 (besides the two for Bedford town,) and contains, 

 according to Mr Lysons, 121 parishes, distributed in 

 9 hundreds, besides the borough of Bedford, viz. 

 Barford, Stodden, Willcy, Biggleswade, Clifton, 

 Wixamtree, Marshead, Redborncstoke, and Flitt : 



