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Divisions and Towns, &c.

BedfordshIre is divided into nine hundreds : viz., Stodden, Willey, and Barford in the north ; Biggleswade and Clifton in the east ; Wixamtree in the centre ; Redbornestoke in the west ; and Manshead and Flitt on the south. The names of all these appear in the Domesday survey, together with the three following half hundreds : Stanburge, Weneslai, and Buchelai. These half hundreds are now incorporated with the hundreds. The town of Bedford also formed a half hundred by itself. The number of parishes is given in Camden's Britannia as 116 ; but by the population returns they appear to amount to 124, besides one district (Chicksands) which is extra-parochial. Of these 124 parishes, one extends into Huntingdonshire, one into Hertfordshire, and one into Northamptonshire.

The number of market towns is ten : Bedford, the county town, on the Ouse, is a parliamentary borough. The population of its five parishes amounted, by the returns of 1831, to 6,959. Luton, on the Lea, in the southern part of the county, comes next in respect of population. The township of Luton contained in 1831, 3,061 inhabitants, and the whole parish of Luton 5,693. Leighton Buzzard, or Busard (population of township in 1831, 3,330, of the whole parish, 5,149), is on the Ouzel. Biggleswade is on the Ivel, it had, in 1831, 3,226 inhabitants. Dunstable (population in 1831, 2,117), once a parliamentary borough, and still retaining something of the form of a corporation, is in the southern part of the county, between Luton and Leighton Buzzard. These are the only towns which have more than 2,000 inhabitants. The others with their population in 1831, are as follows: Woburn (population 1,827), a short distance north by east of Leighton Buzzard and on the high road to Manchester and Liverpool ; Potton (population 1,768), in the east part of the county, on the border towards Cambridgeshire ; Ampthill (population 1,688) on the road between Dunstable and Bedford ; Harrold (population 995), on the river Ouse, in the north-west part of the county, on the border of Northamptonshire, and Shefford on the stream described as the principal branch of the Ivel (population 763). The market of Toddington (population 1,926), between Dunstable and Ampthill has been discontinued of late years.

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