Sites maintained by English Heritage in Bedfordshire

The English County of Bedfordshire contains four properties that are maintained by English Heritage and made accessible to visitors

Bushmead Priory

Bushmead Priory is in the far north of the county, close to the border with Cambridgeshire.

This was a small priory, founded in 1195 as a community of Augustinian “black canons”. It was never home to more than four canons plus the prior.

All that can be seen here today is the Refectory – the only building still standing - but this has been well preserved. It is notable for its original timber roof and 14^th century wall paintings, one of which shows the Creation of Eve.

De Grey Mausoleum, Flitton

The village of Flitton is between Silsoe and the small town of Flitwick. The Mausoleum is attached to the parish church and can only be accessed via the church.

This is a large sepulchral chapel that contains 17 monuments to members of the de Grey family of Wrest Park, these dating from between 1614 and 1859.

Houghton House

This is the unroofed shell of a country mansion built in the early 17^th century for Mary Sidney Herbert, Dowager Countess of Pembroke. It is near the small town of Ampthill, a few miles south of Bedford.

Houghton House may well have been the inspiration for John Bunyan’s “Palace Beautiful” in “The Pilgrim’s Progress” – Bunyan was a native of Bedford.

Houghton House is of interest for its architectural style, combining as it does features of the Jacobean and Classical styles, given that the Classical Revival was in its early stages at the time of its construction.

There are two Italian-style loggias (covered walkways) that could have been designed by Inigo Jones.

Wrest Park

Wrest Park (pictured above) is near the village of Silsoe, about half way between Bedford and Luton. It was the estate of the Robinson family who were also Barons Grantham. Wrest House was completed in 1839 to designs by Thomas de Grey, 3^rd Baron Grantham.

The house resembles a French chateau-style mansion, although visitors are restricted to seeing only a few of the ground floor state rooms.

The main interest at Wrest Park is the expanse of gardens, designed by Capability Brown and covering some 90 acres, that surround the house. These are what most visitors come to see.

English Heritage is overseeing a 20-year restoration project at Wrest Park, so return visitors will be rewarded by seeing more features of the 18^th century gardens (which pre-date the current house) that have been brought back to life.

The park is notable for the many “follies”, statues and other constructions that adorn it, such as the Archer Pavilion – designed in the early 18^th century by Thomas Archer. This domed building stands at one end of the Long Water, in which it is reflected on fine days.

The Bath House, dating from 1770, was designed as a “classical ruin” with a thatched roof. The area around this has recently been restored.

There is a Chinese bridge and temple with a copper roof.

There are many individual garden areas including a rose garden, an Italian garden and a French parterre.

Many woodland and waterside walks can be taken. These lead to features that include an orangery, built in the 1830s, a dogs’ cemetery and a sculpture gallery in the former dairy.

Also of interest at Wrest Park is the Archaeological Store that houses more than 150,000 items that have been gathered from English Heritage sites around the country. These range in date from prehistoric times to the Victorian era. Some 6,000 items have come from historic houses in London and include around 1,000 wallpaper samples.

© John Welford

Newstead Abbey gardens

Newstead Abbey, near Mansfield (Nottinghamshire), was founded by King Henry II as an Augustinian priory in the 12^th century and became a domestic property after the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16^th century. It is probably best known today as the former home of the poet Lord Byron. It is now owned by Nottingham City Council and is open to the public at restricted times throughout the year.

The gardens are worth visiting in their own right, and are actually more accessible than the house, being open on more days and for longer times. 

The formal gardens occupy 25 acres of the 300 acre estate, and are approached by way of a long drive that sweeps through rhododendrons (planted in the 19^th century) and an area of open heathland.

There are sixteen distinct areas within the gardens. Notable among these is the Japanese Garden that was commissioned by Ethel Webb, whose family owned Newstead Abbey during the early 20^th century. This garden features stepping stones and hump-backed bridges that cross streams bordered by rhododendrons, azaleas and bamboo.

The former kitchen garden is now home to vast numbers of roses, the varieties being both modern and traditional, with climbers and ramblers adorning the brick walls.

There is a fine rock garden beyond the great Yew Walk, and a dark tunnel leads to the Eagle Pond, which is one of the original “stew ponds” in which the monks stored fish before they became part of the menu. 

Nearby is the famous memorial to Lord Byron’s dog Boatswain, who was commended for possessing: “Beauty without Vanity, Strength without Insolence, Courage without Ferocity, and all the virtues of Man without his Vices”. The monument is larger than that to Byron himself.

Newstead Abbey Gardens should not be missed if you are in the area!

© John Welford

The Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall

The tip of Cornwall’s Lizard Peninsula is the most southerly point of England. The cliffs rise to 70 metres (200 feet), broken by small rocky coves, some of which house harbours and tiny fishing villages.

The rocks that form the Lizard are of great interest to geologists. Serpentine is predominantly green in colour and can be worked into attractive ornaments, which are less popular now than they were in Victorian times. The parish church of St Wynwallow at Landewednack was built from blocks of granite and serpentine, and the pulpit and font were both carved from serpentine. Landewednack is the most southerly parish in England.

Soapstone is another interesting rock found here.

Popular coves include Mullion Cove, which has a picturesque harbour and an island bird reserve, and Kynance Cove which has caves to explore and a blowhole called the Devil’s Bellows through which the sea spouts when the tide comes in.

On the eastern side of the Lizard are the villages of Cadgwith and Coverack. The latter name is Cornish for “hideaway”, which refers to the previous use of the area as a smuggler’s haven.

Offshore are the dangerous rocks known as the Manacles, which have been responsible for many shipwrecks in the past. The tall spire of the church of St Keverne was a vital landmark for ships in the Channel, and the churchyard is the burial place of many sailors who failed to set their course correctly despite the spire’s guidance.

Myths abound in a place like this, and these include stories of mermaids. One tells of an old man who rescued a mermaid and returned her to the sea, for which kindness she granted him three wishes. When his time came to die she came for him and took him out to sea with her. 

Whether or not you believe tales like this, The Lizard is still a place of particularly grandeur and wild beauty.

© John Welford

John O'Groats and the legend of Jan de Groot

John O’Groats is a Scottish village at the northern end of the longest possible direct route on the mainland of Great Britain, with Cornwall’s Land’s End marking the other end. The settlement is not particularly inspiring, consisting of a few cottages, a hotel, some bed-and-breakfast establishments and gift shops, a garage-cum-post office, a signpost pointing to various places including New York and – that’s just about it! It has been described as “Scotland’s most dismal town”, which is fairly accurate apart from the place not even being a town! 

John O’Groats is not actually at the most northern or north-eastern point of Scotland – you need to go a few more miles to Dunnet Head to reach the former or Duncansby Head for the latter. 

The name of the village is certainly a bit unusual. It is a corruption of Jan de Groot, who was a Dutchman who lived here in the late 15^th century. He operated a ferry service to the Orkney Islands, which was quite a profitable venture. He had a large family, the members of which looked forward to inheriting the business when Jan died.

The problem was that the junior de Groots became so obsessed with the matter of which of them would become the new ferry master that Jan decided to take a leaf out of the book of the legendary ancient king of Britain, Arthur. 

According to the old stories, King Arthur sat all his knights at a round table so that none of them could claim precedence by being at the head of the table. Jan de Groot’s family comprised eight people, so he built an eight-sided house, inside which was an eight-sided table. That is the legend, although there is absolutely no evidence to support it. 

The hotel, which overlooks the Pentland Firth that separates Caithness from the Orkneys, has a tower with an eight-sided roof, but that was just a piece of whimsy on the part of the building’s Victorian architect.

The idea of walking from John O’Groats to Lands End (or vice versa) dates back to at least 1871, when the feat was accomplished by John and Robert Naylor, a pair of brothers. It was not until 1916 that they published their account of the trip, which was not via the most direct route to judge by the book’s title: “From John O’Groats to Lands End: Or, 1372 Miles on Foot”. The route usually taken today (if sticking to the roads) is 874 miles, but walkers generally use off-road footpaths and can walk as much as 1200 miles as a result.

The Naylors recounted their search for Jan de Groot’s octagonal house, but all they found was “a few mounds of earth covered with grass”. During their stay they were shown a book dated 1839 that contained a poem written by a previous searcher who had also been unsuccessful.

So it could well be that the story of the octagonal table and house was fiction from start to finish, or maybe the house existed but the table did not? 

All one can say for certain is that Jan de Groot ran ferries to the Orkneys, and it is still possible, during the summer months, to take a boat from John O’Groats to Burwick at the southern end of South Ronaldsay, which is the closest of the Orkney Islands to the Scottish mainland. The journey takes 40 minutes and is accessible only to pedestrians and cyclists.

© John Welford

Sea stacks

This photo is one that I took a few years ago – you can just make out my shadow on the cliff face! 

It shows a well-known example of sea stacks caused by the erosion of chalk cliffs by the sea over a period of many thousands of years. The foreground stacks are The Needles at the western tip of the Isle of Wight, which is about half-way along the south coast of England.

In the very far distance you can just make out another line of white cliffs. These culminate in another set of sea stacks, known as the Old Harry Rocks, which are on the coast of Dorset. There was once a continuous line of cliffs that connected The Needles to Old Harry, but the sea has long since destroyed them and then gouged out a huge bay from the softer deposits that were previously protected by the harder chalk.

Sea stacks form when the sea erodes the chalk on both sides of a headland to form caves. When the caves meet back-to-back, arches will form through which the sea can pass unhindered, making the gap ever wider. In time the roof of each arch will collapse, and the pillars of rock between the arches will be left isolated as stacks. Eventually even these will go.

One can appreciate that this process must have happened many times over to create the gap between the Isle of Wight and Dorset, and there is nothing to suggest that it will not go on doing so into the far distant future!

© John Welford

Belas Knap long barrow, Gloucestershire

Belas Knap is a Neolithic long barrow that dates from around 3,700 BC. It is on a ridge of the Cotswold Hills (Cleeve Hill) high above the small town of Winchcombe in Gloucestershire.

Belas Knap is what is known as a chambered long barrow, in that it consists of a mound of earth into which stone-lined burial chambers – now open - were inserted. There are four such chambers at Belas Knap, two on opposites sides about half way along, one at the far end from the “entrance”, and another at the side close to the last-mentioned chamber.

The supposed entrance is actually false, in that the barrow does not contain a central covered way. The mound forms wings or “horns” at one end that guard a small courtyard that was probably used for ceremonial purposes.

The barrow is about 180 feet long, 60 feet wide and 14 feet high at its highest point.

Excavations of the barrow took place in 1863-5 and 1928, which discovered many human and animal remains in the four chambers and hidden behind the stone facing of the false entrance. It is believed that at least 38 people of various ages were buried here over a 100 year period. Some of them showed evidence of having died violent deaths from head injuries.

During the 1928 excavation a considerable amount of restoration work was done to Belas Knap so that it probably looks today much as it did 5,500 years ago. The work involved re-roofing the burial chambers with concrete, but that is the only discordant feature that can be seen here today.

Belas Knap can only be reached on foot, involving a steep climb from the nearest roadside access point. However, the effort is well rewarded, not only for the visit to the ancient monument but also for the magnificent views to be had across the surrounding countryside, given that this is close to the highest point of the Cotswolds.

© John Welford

Rotten Row, Hyde Park, London

This broad sandy avenue runs for nearly a mile along the south side of London’s Hyde Park, and there is absolutely nothing rotten about it – either literally or figuratively! 

It was first laid out during the joint reign of King William III and Queen Mary II, which lasted from 1689 to Mary’s death in 1694 (after which William reigned alone for another eight years). 

The avenue was laid out as a private road to grant safe access for the royals between Kensington Palace and the central London residences of St James’s Palace and Whitehall (reached via the adjoining Green Park to the east). 

The route was lit at night by 300 oil lamps, as a precaution against highwaymen, and Rotten Row was thus the first artificially lit road in Britain. 

In later years Rotten Row became a fashionable place for exercising horses, being close to the homes of many upper-class Londoners who lived in the vicinity of Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. It was somewhere to see and be seen and was often crowded with riders, although these days not many Londoners have houses with stables attached, so the Row is usually empty. 

However, it is still a regular exercise route for the Household Cavalry, whose barracks are close by. 

But why the name Rotten Row? It is simply a corruption of the original name “Rue du Roi”, or “King’s Road”. It is not difficult to see how Londoners with no knowledge of French might convert the name to what it has been for several centuries past! 

© John Welford