Bedfordshire And The County Of Huntingdon And Peterborough

Originally published: London: Penguin, 1968.

Bedfordshire is one of the smallest English counties but encompasses great variety in landscape and architecture. Its major monument is Woburn Abbey, one of the finest Georgian country houses in England, and the influence of the estate is widely felt in the model housing and schools in the county’s villages. Its many other attractions range from the churches of the market towns of Bedford, Leighton Buzzard, and Ampthill to the majestic gardens at Wrest Park. Such variety is also to be found in Huntingdonshire and Peterborough, famous not only for the cathedral and the spires of the stone medieval parish churches scattered across its remote and intimate landscape but also for vast and stately Burghley House and Vanbrugh’s Kimbolton Castle. This a fully revised edition of Pevsner’s original guide of 1968 and contains separate introductions, gazetteers, and photographs for Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough.

The second volume of a massive, illustrated survey of the greater houses of medieval England and Wales, first published in 1996.

Over the centuries, proximity to major routes\-\-\-the Great North Road, the Icknield Way, and Watling Street\-\-\-has made Bedfordshire strategically important. Iron Age hillforts occupied significant locations, and castles consolidated Norman control after 1066. In later medieval times, two major events occurred: in 1224, the siege of Bedford Castle marked Henry III’s attempt to reimpose royal authority after the chaos of John’s reign; and the Second Battle of St Albans in 1461 was a major defeat for the Yorkists. During the wars of the twentieth century, the county’s industrial base supported the armies fighting overseas. In the First World War, the county contributed significantly to the birth of the RAF as well as provided the base for the Home Defence armies. In the Second World War, its airfields despatched RAF and USAAF bombers over the continent, but the major activity was the secret war largely associated with the Bedford Triangle. After 1945, aeronautical research continued at RAF Thurleigh\/Twinwood Farm and electronic intelligence\-gathering was developed at Chicksands. \x27Defending Bedfordshire\x27 seeks to explain the significance of this dense concentration of military sites to be found in a relatively small county.

Through close examination of dozens of electoral contests in carefully chosen constituencies, the author demonstrates that the fundamental division separating the burgeoning liberal and conservative parties in England in the 1830s and 1840s was religion, and that this controversy was what created a perceptible two-party system in British politics.