County in England
Bedfordshire
Bedfordshire gave the world Pilgrim's Progress, a pudding with a savoury end and a sweet end, and the hangars where Batman filmed.
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Key information
- County
- Bedfordshire
- Nation
- England
- Population
- around 700,000 (2021 Census)
- Known for
- Hat-making, Luton Airport, Whipsnade Zoo, Woburn, the Cardington airship hangars, John Bunyan
- What locals are called
- Bedfordians (Lutonians in Luton)
- Famous people
- John Bunyan, Captain Sir Tom Moore, Glenn Miller (last flight)
- Football clubs
- Luton Town (the Hatters), Bedford Town, Dunstable Town
About Bedfordshire
The pudding with two ends
Start with the Bedfordshire clanger, a suet-crust roll that is savoury at one end and sweet at the other. Meat and vegetables went in one half, jam or apple in the other, so a farm labourer could eat a whole dinner in the field with one hand. It is a very Bedfordshire sort of invention: practical, frugal and quietly clever. The county is still mostly farmland and market gardens, especially around Sandy and Biggleswade, where vegetables have long been grown for London's tables. The Woburn estate has a food legacy too. Anna, Duchess of Bedford, is credited with popularising afternoon tea in the 1840s, when she grew tired of the long gap between lunch and dinner.
The tinker who wrote a world classic from a cell
John Bunyan was born in 1628 at Elstow, just outside Bedford, and worked as a tinker, mending pots and pans. He became a Nonconformist preacher, and after the Restoration he was jailed in Bedford for preaching without permission. The story goes that The Pilgrim's Progress took shape during his time behind bars. It was published in 1678 and has hardly been out of print since. It was translated into well over a hundred languages and was for generations the book most English households owned after the Bible. Bedford still celebrates him, and his statue stands in the town centre.
Hats, vans and a town that took off
Luton was once the hat capital of England. Straw plaiting was a cottage industry across the county, and Luton turned it into factories full of boaters and bonnets. That is why Luton Town are the Hatters. In 1905 Vauxhall Motors moved to Luton, and the town became a car and van town. The long-bodied box van known across Britain as a Luton van carries its name everywhere. The airport opened in 1938 and later became a base for holiday and low-cost airlines. Luton Town won the League Cup in 1988, beating Arsenal 3–2 at Wembley. In 2023 the club completed a rise from non-league football to the Premier League by winning the Championship play-off final on penalties against Coventry.
Airships, gliders and a lost bandleader
Cardington, near Bedford, has two enormous airship hangars that dominate the flat landscape for miles. The first was built during the First World War for Short Brothers' naval airship work, before the site became the Royal Airship Works. The second was originally built at RNAS Pulham in Norfolk and moved to Cardington in 1928. The R101, then the largest airship in the world, set off from here in October 1930 on its fatal flight to India. It crashed in France and 48 people died. The hangars have since played Gotham in Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins, among other films. Flying is part of the county's character. The Shuttleworth Collection at Old Warden keeps vintage aircraft in flying condition, while gliders ride the winds over Dunstable Downs. In December 1944 the American bandleader Glenn Miller took off from Twinwood Farm near Bedford on a flight to Paris and was never seen again.
Zoos, deer and a royal divorce
Whipsnade, opened by the Zoological Society of London in 1931, was one of the first zoos to let animals roam in large, open paddocks. At Woburn, the Duke of Bedford's estate has a safari park and a link to a conservation success. The 11th Duke built up a herd of Père David's deer, saving the species from extinction after it vanished from China. Dunstable's priory has a place in Tudor drama. In May 1533 Archbishop Cranmer held court there and declared Henry VIII's marriage to Catherine of Aragon void. She was staying at Ampthill, not far away, and refused to attend. The Dunstable Downs, part of the Chilterns, are among the highest points in the county.
Little Italy on the Ouse
Bedford sits on the Great Ouse, which gives the county town its rowing, river walks and the biennial River Festival. It is also home to one of Britain's largest Italian communities. After the Second World War, the London Brick Company recruited workers from southern Italy for its brickworks, and their families built lives in the town. Bedford Blues, one of English rugby's long-established clubs, play here. In the Second World War the county's quiet airfields and country houses were busy with wartime work. Captain Sir Tom Moore, who lived in Marston Moretaine, walked laps of his garden in 2020 and raised more than £32 million for NHS charities. He was knighted that year.