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Civil History and Antiquities

At the time of the Roman invasion, Bedfordshire appears to have formed part of the territory of the Cattieuchlani ; a people conjectured by Camden to be the same as the Cassii, mentioned by Caesar among the tribes who submitted to him during his second invasion of the island. In common with other inhabitants of South Britain they fell under the Roman domination. Three roads, which may be referred to this period, or a still more ancient one, crossed this county, and several camps or earth works still remain. Of the roads, the Watling Street runs in a north-west direction, and coincides in this county with the high road from London through Dunstable and Fenny Stratford (Bucks) to Coventry. It was, probably, of British origin, though used and improved by the Romans, who had on it their station of Durocobrivae (Antoninus), or Forum Dianae (Richard of Cirencester), now Dunstable. The Ikening or Ikeneld Street, also of British origin, runs in a south-west direction through Dunstable. The third road, a Roman military road, coincides with the present high north road from near Baldock to the vicinity of Biggleswade, where the modern road makes a bend, while the ancient one pursues a more direct course through Tempsford Marsh or Cow Common into Cambridgeshire. It is supposed that a Roman road from the Isle of Ely to Cambridge led from the latter place through Bedfordshire towards Fenny Stratford. On the edge of a low range of the Chilterns at Maiden Bower, near Dunstable, are the remains of a British station or town. These remains consist of a vallum, nearly circular, thrown up on a level plain, and inclosing a space of about nine acres. The banks are from eight to fourteen feet high. There is no ditch on the south side, and on the south-west and west only a very small one ; on the north-west is a descent to the meadows. Some have assigned to this work a Saxon or Danish origin. About a mile westward of this is another remarkable earth-work, called Tosternhoe Castle. It consists of a lofty circular mount, with a slight vallum round its base, and a larger one of an irregular form at some distance from it. On the south-east side of this is a camp, in the form of a parallelogram long, about 500 feet long, and 250 feet wide (the length extending from north-west to south-east), secured on three by a vallum and ditch (very entire on the south-east side), and protected on the fourth (the south-west) side by a precipitous descent. The irregular work is supposed to have been of British, and the parallelogram of Roman origin. At or near the village of Sandy, or Salndy, about three miles north of Biggleswade, is supposed to have been a British or Roman town known to Ptolemy, called Salinae in the Chorography of the anonymous geographer of Ravenna. A large Roman camp (once perhaps a British post), called popularly Caesar’s Camp, may be traced in the immediate vicinity of this place. It is of irregular form, being adapted to the summit of the hill, and incloses about thirty acres. There are circular inclosures of earth on the heath near Leighton Buzzard, and at about four miles east of Bedford near the road to Great Barford and Eaton-Socon. The last is small, but of considerable height, with openings on the north and south sides, resembling an amphitheatre.

In the contest maintained by the Britons against their Saxon invaders, and again by the Saxons against the encroachments of the Danes, Bedfordshire appears to have been the scene of violent contest. At Bedford a battle was fought in 571, 572, or 580, between Cutha, or Cuthwolf, brother of Ceaulin, or Cealwin, King of the West Saxons, and the Britons : in which the latter were routed, and lost in consequence of their defeat, four principal towns, one of which was Lygeanburgh, supposed to be Leighton in this county. Yet although this success was gained by the West Saxons, the county was comprehended in the subsequently formed kingdom of Mercia, founded by a body of Angles. Offa, King of the Mercians, is said to have been buried at Bedford ; but his sepulchre was carried away by an inundation of the Ouse. In the Danish wars Bedford suffered severely, having indeed been ruined by those fierce invaders ; but it was repaired by Edward the Elder, son and successor of Alfred the Great. The same prince afterwards besieged and took Temesford, now Tempsford, which the Danes had fortified. In 1009 and 1010, during the war between Ethelred II and Sweyn, King of Denmark, the Danes invaded this county. In the latter of these years they burnt Bedford and Temesford ; but in 1011 the county returned under the sway of Ethelred.

An account of the castle of Bedford, and the historical circumstances connected with it, is given in the description of Bedford.

It is supposed that all the other baronial castles in the county of any note had been destroyed in the reign of John ; and it is perhaps owing to this that we read of so few occurrences in Bedfordshire during the civil war of the Roses. This county was the scene of few conspicuous events during the civil war between Charles I and his parliament.

Bedfordshire possessed several monastic establishments. There were six ‘greater monasteries,’ i.e. monasteries possessing above £200 clear yearly revenue at the time of the Dissolution : viz., Elstow Abbey, near Bedford, for Benedictine nuns, founded in the time of William the Conqueror by his niece, Judith ; gross yearly income £325, 2 shillings and 1 penny, clear income £284, 12 shillings, 11 pence. Dunstable Priory, for Black Canons, was founded by King Henry I in the latter part of his reign ; at the Dissolution the gross revenue was £402, 14 shillings, 7 pence, and the clear revenue £344,13 shillings, 3 pence per annum. Wardon, or Warden, otherwise De Sartis Abbey (Warden, once a market-town, is to the right of the road to Bedford, between Shefford and that town), was founded by Walter Espec, in 1135, for Cistercian monks ; at the Dissolution it had £442, 11 shillings, 11 pence gross, or £389, 16 shillings, 6 pence clear yearly revenue. Woburn Abbey and Chicksands Priory, near Shefford are described in the notes of those towns. Newenham Priory, near Bedford, was founded in the time of Henry II by Simon Beauchamp, who removed hither a priory of Black Canons from St. Paul’s, Bedford ; the gross yearly revenue of Newenham Priory at the Dissolution was £343, 15 shillings, 5 pence, the clear revenue £293, 5 shillings, 11 pence. There were many minor establishments, priories, nunneries, hospitals, &c.

Of these monastic establishments there are no considerable remains, except of Dunstable Priory, Elstow Abbey, Newenham and Chicksands Priory, the last of which has already been noted. The parish churches of Dunstable and Elstow were the conventual churches ; indeed Dunstable church is only the nave of the original structure. These exhibit the Norman intermingled with the early English style of architecture.

Among the parochial churches of this county are some relics of early architecture. The nave of Pudington church, in the north-west extremity of the county, has the semicircular arch and zigzag moulding characteristic of the Norman, or, as some call it, the Saxon style : the same style is also conspicuous in the south door of St. Peter’s at Bedford, and in the doors of the churches at Elstow, Flitwick, and a chapel at Meppershall. The early English is to be traced in the churches of Felmersham, on the Ouse, not far below Harrold ; Eaton Bray and Studham, both in the southern extremity of the county ; Barton in the Clay, between Luton and Bedford ; Leighton Buzzard ; and, though in a small degree, Luton. The decorated English style, which prevailed in the fourteenth century and succeeded the early English is to be traced in Low Sundon and Ampthill churches ; in St. Paul's, Bedford ; in Silsoe chapel, and in some churches already mentioned. Dunstable, Leighton Buzzard and Luton churches are perhaps the best deserving of examination of any in the county.

It does not appear that there are any remains of baronial castles in Bedfordshire, except the earth works which mark their sites, and which may be observed at Bedford, Eaton-Socon, and other places.

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