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Bedfordshire
History And Information
Bedfordshire History
Take a stroll in Bedford Park, or walk the embankment, along the river with gardens and bandstand, watch the lights
come on at dusk, the Harpur Centre, has 30 quality shops under one roof. The town has two theatres; Bowen West and the Civic.
One of the town's "claims to fame" is that John Bunyan wrote Pilgrims
Progress while in Bedford jail from 1660 to 1672 and in 1676. His statue is in the town, and a Park and Ride scheme in operation to ease traffic jams. Bedfordshire borders Cambridgeshire,
Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire with the Borough of Milton Keynes and Hertfordshire. John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72) note that the highest point in Bedfordshire
is Kensworth, at 904 feet. Kensworth was, until 1897, a part of Hertfordshire.
As part of a 2002 marketing campaign, the plant conservation charity Plant life chose the Bee Orchid as the county
flower. The southern end of the county is part of the chalk ridge known as the Chiltern Hills the remainder is part of the broad drainage basin of the River Great Ouse and its tributaries.
Most of
Bedfordshire's rocks are clays and sandstones with some limestone local clay have been used for brick-making at Fletton. Glacial erosion of chalk has left the hard flint nodules deposited as gravel
this has been commercially extracted in the past at pits which are now lakes, at Priory Country Park, Wyboston and Felmersham.
Three of England's six main trunk roads pass through Bedfordshire: The A1
London to Edinburgh road (The Great North Road) runs close by Biggleswade and Sandy the A5 London to Holyhead road (Watling Street), passes through Dunstable the A6 St Albans to Carlisle, through
Luton and Bedford. The River Great Ouse links Bedfordshire to the Fenland waterways. a canal links the Great Ouse at Bedford to the Grand Union Canal at Milton Keynes, 23 km distant. Luton is also a
major city with city style facilities to be found here, with the main shopping centre around George Street and the Arndale Centre.
As a result of these shopping developments a lot of Luton's old
buildings were lost. Entertainment facilities include a theatre, The Library Theatre, cinema and a bowling alley as well as the Artezium, a new arts and media centre.
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