Local History

South Bedfordshire today is the gateway to the Midlands and East Anglia, but this is no recent innovation. Its transport links and easy accessibility have moulded the area's fortunes since earliest times.

Queen Boudicca probably drove her chariot along the ancient highway that takes its name from her tribe, the Iceni. The Icknield Way, in some places still a green lane and in others incorporated into modern roads, still follows the Chilterns escarpment to link East Anglia with the Thames and eventually the old tribal meeting place at Avebury in Wiltshire.  The Romans built their Watling Street through a north-south gap in the Chiltern Hills and established a small posting station at the crossroads formed with the Icknield Way.

In the 12th century, Henry I split his manor to form the town of Dunstable at the ancient crossroads of Watling Street and Icknield Way.  Henry built a palace and founded an Augustinian priory, however, five centuries later, the priory was the location for the divorce proceedings between Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon.  This was soon followed by the dissolution of the priory itself soon afterwards. Part of the original priory church, with its fine Norman nave and magnificent west front, survives as the town's parish church, St. Peters Church. 
 

Following the Reformation of the church, Dunstable after a time, again became a busy town with the advent of stagecoach travel. Several coaching inns remain from this prosperous period, but eventually declined with the coming of the railway age and the consequent shift of the straw-plait and hat making industries from Dunstable to Luton with its main line railway station.

Once again Dunstable rode out its misfortunes and, at the turn of the century, began to welcome new industries including printing and engineering and, most notably, the motor trade with companies including Commer and Renault and Bedford Trucks having a considerable presence in the town. Today, many companies with household names have premises on the town's modern industrial estates; W H Smith, Bernard Matthews Foods, Electrolux, Whitbread, The Sellotape Company and Sports Soccer. 

The other main settlement in South Bedfordshire is Leighton Buzzard and is mentioned in the Domesday Book. It was a thriving market town even then, a tradition that continues in the attractive Georgian High Street, with its 15th century market cross. The 13th century parish church is one of the finest in the country.
The Industrial Revolution brought men like Thomas Telford to improve Bedfordshire's roads, and it also brought the dawn of the Canal Age. The Grand Union Canal was opened through Linslade in 1830 giving birth to a whole new culture aboard the colourful narrowboats that carried goods between London and Birmingham. Boats were built, loaded, maintained and painted with their distinctive roses and castles at wharves along the busy Linslade canal-side. Although cargo carrying continued into the 1950s, the decline of the canals was already on the cards when the LMS railway was built through Linslade in 1838.  Today the canal is mostly used for leisure purposes, predominantly for cruises and day-trips.

Leighton Buzzard and the surrounding villages are built on sand--thick seams of very pure sand laid down in prehistoric times, and since covered by layers of clay.  Because of its purity, and its range of colours from white to dark brown, it was used in a variety of applications, from foundry moulds to golf-course bunkers, as well as in the construction industry.

Following the outbreak of the First World War, industrial demand for sand soared, with the sand being transported by road (horse-drawn carts, and later steam lorries).  As a result, the roads in the area suffered enormously. After the war, the quarry owners were told that they would be responsible for repairing any future damage, and this led quickly to the formation of Leighton Buzzard Light Railway Ltd (LBLR).

Owned by the two main quarry operators in the area the railway company built a line which was in service by the end of 1919. The peak period for traffic on the LBLR was in the late 1940s and early 1950s, when 20 train loads of sand were regularly dispatched each day - a phenomenal performance for a single-track railway.  Following increased use of road and rail transportation in the subsequent decades, the last quarry railway closed in 1981.

Today, the narrow gauge railway, operated by  Leighton Buzzard Narrow Gauge Railway Society, which runs miniature steam trains along a five-mile route into the countryside, is one of the the top toursit attractions in the area.  

Houghton Regis, the third largest town in South Bedfordshire, was a royal manor of Edward the Confessor and is also mentioned in the Domesday Book. In the 12th century, Henry I annexed a large part of the manor's land to develop a new settlement, known today as Dunstable.  The depleted area of Houghton was further divided until the 17th century when a wealthy businessman, Henry Brandreth bought the manor and and reunited much of it under his ownership. Houghton Hall manor house is pictured to the left.

Today, Houghton Regis, is a modern community, comprising extensive housing estates, a shopping precinct and a range of indistrial estates.
 
For more information on the history of Leighton Buzzard, Linslade and nearby villages including Billington, Eggington, Heath & Reach and Stanbridge, please visit the Leighton - Linslade Past Times website.