Town in Bedfordshire, England
Bedford
A big band legend took off from a field near Bedford in 1944 and was never seen again, in a town that also gave the world The Pilgrim's Progress and a pudding with two flavours.
Key information
- County
- Bedfordshire
- Nation
- England
- Known for
- John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress, the River Great Ouse, the Cardington airship sheds and the Bedfordshire Clanger
- What locals are called
- Bedfordians
- Famous people
- John Bunyan, Samuel Whitbread, Alastair Cook (schooled there), Glenn Miller (last flight from nearby Twinwood)
- Football clubs
- Bedford Town
About Bedford
The bandleader who vanished from a Bedfordshire field
On 15 December 1944, the American bandleader Glenn Miller climbed into a small plane at RAF Twinwood Farm, a wartime airfield just outside Bedford. He was heading for Paris to prepare concerts for troops. The aircraft never arrived, and no wreckage was ever found over the Channel. Miller had played in Bedford during the war, and the town's Corn Exchange became part of the story of his final months. Twinwood is now remembered as the last place he was seen, and the mystery still draws visitors.
Twelve years in a cell, one book for the ages
Bedford's most famous son in spirit, if not in birthplace, is John Bunyan. Born in the village of Elstow, just down the road, in 1628, he was a tinker who became a Nonconformist preacher. After the Restoration, he refused to stop preaching without a licence and was locked up in Bedford's county gaol in 1660. He stayed there for twelve years. The Pilgrim's Progress, published in 1678, grew out of his time behind bars. It became one of the most widely read books in English and has been translated into scores of languages. Today a bronze statue of Bunyan by Joseph Edgar Boehm stands on the High Street, unveiled in 1874. Bunyan Meeting church nearby has bronze doors carved with scenes from his story.
A castle that Henry III flattened
Bedford has been a fortified place for over a thousand years. In the tenth century King Edward the Elder fortified the town against the Danes, and the River Great Ouse made it an easy crossing point worth defending. The Norman castle ended in drama. In 1224 Henry III's army besieged it after its holder, Falkes de Breauté, defied the king. When the garrison surrendered, the castle was torn down. Only the great grassy mound survives, near the river. Local legend also says that Offa, the powerful eighth-century king of Mercia, was buried somewhere beside the river here.
Schools, a London field and a river full of rowers
Bedford's reputation for schools comes from a Tudor gift. In 1566 Sir William Harpur, a Bedford-born Lord Mayor of London, and his wife Dame Alice gave land in Holborn to support a school in the town. As London grew, the land's value soared, and the Harpur Trust still funds several Bedford schools. Bedford School counts England cricket captain Alastair Cook among its former pupils. The river is the town's front garden. The Embankment, with its Victorian gardens and willows, is lined with rowers, and the Bedford Regatta is one of the oldest on the Great Ouse. Every other year the Bedford River Festival fills the banks with music, stalls and fireworks.
Giant sheds, a doomed airship and a very Italian town
A few miles from the town centre, the huge hangars at Cardington once built airships. In 1930 the R101, then the largest flying craft in the world, set off from here for India. It crashed in France on the way, killing 48 people and ending Britain's airship ambitions. The sheds still dominate the flat landscape. Bedford also has a strong Italian flavour. After the Second World War, thousands of Italians came to work in the Bedfordshire brickworks, and their families made the town one of the most Italian in England. Delis, cafes and festivals show it.
Clangers, Blues and Eagles
The Bedfordshire Clanger is the local classic. It's a long suet pastry with a savoury filling of meat and potato at one end and a sweet one, such as apple or jam, at the other. Farm workers could take their whole meal in one go. On the pitch, Bedford Blues, founded in 1886, play rugby at Goldington Road, while Bedford Town carry the football flag. Bedford Town's nickname is the Eagles. The town's old trade in lace, the Bedfordshire lace once made by hand in cottages around the county, is another quiet part of its past.