Woburn

The Abbey was originally a Cistercian community established in 1145. Reverting to the Crown after the Dissolution, the land was largely dormant until King Edward VI granted it to the Russell family in 1574. The house was largely rebuilt in the 18th century; there have been several additions made since, including much of the infill on the elevation shown here.
An extract from from"Bedfordshire Photographic Memories".

The opening of Woburn Abbey to the general public introduced many to the delights of a rural involvement without the necessity to move home and hearth. It was many years later that the enjoyment given by proximity to the native deer led to the establishment of the safari park as a major part of the attraction of a day out at Woburn. In the mid-1960s the Bedfordshire branch of the Sporting Owner Drivers Club (SODC - known as The Sods) used a steep hill not too far from the location of this picture as the regular venue for a series of hill-climbing events.
An extract from from"Bedfordshire Living Memories".

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert visited Woburn on a number of occasions, although it is not suggested that the sitting rooms on view fully reflect the ornate taste in decor of the period.
An extract from from"Bedfordshire Photographic Memories".

FEW PEOPLE would be shocked by the idea of a national poll, conducted by Idler magazine, discovering that Luton was Britain’s ‘crappiest town’. Luton stands out, according to the study, because it is incredibly ugly and has a sense of neglected isolation. Well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but what is neglected isolation? Clearly there is some kind of insinuation that Luton is not cool, it’s not with the latest trends in ‘Cool Britannia.’ Leaders of popular culture have a stupefying arrogance, loathing any sort of individuality; they are able to dish out criticism, but not to take it. Luton is about people, whatever the buildings look like. One must admit that modern towns are unbearably look-alike, but none look like Luton. Maybe it is this uniqueness that critics cannot stand. That is not to say there are not problems here, but these are challenging times across the globe. No place is really isolated. As for neglected, that is not Luton’s fault. Like so much of the south-east, the government wants to pack the people in, but it does not want to pay the price in infrastructure. The meaning of isolation in the town’s distant past is easier to understand. Communications were slow, and neglect was not an issue. Folk just got on with the business of survival. Hunter gatherers (evidence for their presence is Worthington Smith’s discovery of Palaeolithic flint tools in the 19th century) made their home 250,000 years ago beside hillside lakes. Neolithic, or New Stone Age, men arrived from France and the Rhine, crossing the nascent channel on rafts. They brought cattle, seed corn and pottery. (Robert Cook) We are looking across Luton in its Chiltern setting from the Eaton Farm location, which became the airport.
An extract from from"Luton - A History & Celebration".

William brought with him 5,000 knights, the new aristocracy. When he died the country was still 90% Saxon; the Normans’ policy, like the Romans’, was ‘divide and rule’, with the majority of England’s two million people subject to the Norman fist. His successor, Henry II, gave the manor of Luton to his illegitimate son Robert, Earl of Gloucester, and a new church was built south of the present St Mary’s. Henry also gave land to the monks to build a hospital and chapel on Farley Hill. Another hospital, the House of God of the Virgin Mary, was founded by Thomas Beckett on a hill between the old Vauxhall car factory and Luton Airport.
An extract from from"Luton - A History & Celebration".