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A brief stay in Bedford UK
Published: 22 November 2022 ~ Bedford more to like than not
Rumours that I haven’t posted much to my blog recently have invoked theories ranging from a nasty reaction to not-working sanctions to being fitted up by the British unjudicial system for saying things that are not allowed. But that wasn’t me. Clue: Marvin Gaye, he ‘Heard it through the Grape Vine’. Whatever the rumours, they are greatly exaggerated.
Alas, the explanation is far more mundane: I’ve been on holiday in the UK.
“A likely story,” says someone who accuses everyone else of conspiracy theories. “I suppose you will be telling us next that you had no access to the internet!”
Well, as it happens, where I was staying, no.
Travelling package-style by Hart’s Tours, which would have been a successful company had it not been inaugurated on the eve of the coronavirus experiment, the exclusive hotel in which I would be staying is renowned for containing more antiques than Britain’s got migrants (er, possibly not), but what it has not got is the internet. No point in taking my laptop, thought I; just extra weight to carry.
Verily, no internet connection and also no TV is an excellent way of detoxifying yourself from the insurgency of cyberspace and the brain-numbing mumbo jumbo thrust wilfully up you by mainstream media. If you are one of those, or even just one of those, who have become enslaved to your iPhone and are concerned about being controlled and tracked on a daily basis by the slippery Silicon Valley Mob, I recommend when visiting England that you opt for Towlson Towers. As a no frills hotel, complete with a host of truly irritating inconveniences, such as 40 watt bulbs where 100 watts should be, cold and cold running water, as many steps in unusual places as one could ever want to trip up, over and down and an invigorating absence of any form of heating (a luxury extra at this establishment even before Britain’s energy crisis took hold), TTs is the place.
My return to the UK did not take me to London: “Love the history, Fawlty, can’t stand the Woke!” No, I was headed to Bedford, a market town in Bedfordshire, of which C.F. Farrar wrote in his excellent book Old Bedford nothing happened for five hundred years. A lot did happen in the many years preceding the five hundred when nothing happened and a lot has happened since, but nothing for the better. Bedford town centre, like every other town and city in the UK, is a sad and sorry reminder of just how radically and irreparably our liberal masters have dismantled and infected what once, without a shadow of a doubt, was one of the greatest countries, if not the greatest country, the world has ever known.
If you buy into or simply pay lip service, because you are told to do so, so you think you must, to the political mantras about ‘enrichment’ and ‘vibrancy’ and all the other embarrassing slogans attached to the back of multiculturalism, which are rattled out like an old tin can tied to a frightened cat’s tail, then go ahead and love it! But for the majority, there is no doubt that there is more to be avoided in modern British society than there is to be enjoyed.
But this is not to single Bedford out. Many white British who live in the surrounding villages are very quick to assert, and are adamant with it, that they ‘never go into the towns!’ wherever those towns may be.
Acknowledging, therefore, the relevance of the old song lyrics, ‘Things ‘aint what they used to be’, let’s briefly escape from the modern-day tragedy of Bedford, representative as it is of the plight and prescient social upheaval that awaits the UK in the not-too-distant future, and dip a little into its past ~ into the real English beginnings and their making of the character of the place.
Bedford more to like than not
Bedford is a market town and the historic county town of Bedfordshire. Its name is said to derive from an amalgamation of the name of a Saxon chief called Beda and a ford that crossed the River Great Ouse. Offa of Mercia, the Anglo-Saxon king, was buried in Bedford in 796 but is probably no longer there, as his tomb on the banks of the Great River Ouse most likely ensured that he upped and floated away.
Bedford had a castle, which was constructed under the auspices of Hugh de Beauchamp, within 20 years of the Norman Conquest in 1066. “This was the time when it all went wrong!” a friend of mine is fond of saying. He is not necessarily or at least exclusively referring to Bedford itself, of which a lot went wrong in more recent times. He means to imply that it all went wrong with England. “It’s the fault of those bloody Normans!” he likes to cry, whenever we see a rabbit or driving along through country lanes espy a church with a Norman tower.
For Bedford Castle, it all went wrong when a robber baron, Sir Fulke de Breauté (there were a lot of robber barons about in those days), fatally overestimated not only his own importance and invincibility but the impregnability of his castle.
He believed that by kidnapping a judge (as you do) and incarcerating him within his castle, he would prevent the Crown from taking the castle away from him. Instead, he succeeded in getting the castle sieged, bombarded, breached and blown up and a number of people killed, before he was eventually brought to ground himself and exiled to a terrible place where nobody wanted to go, not even in the middle-ages, across the Channel to France!
Today, all that remains of what reputedly was a redoubtable fortification, Bedford Castle, is a large grassy mound. “A great place to sit and eat chips,” someone wrote in a tourist review. I would add to that, “a great place to sit and eat chips whilst pondering British history.”
Bedford’s Castle Mound is still worth visiting as it is situated in what is easily the most attractive quarter of the town, The Embankment. Getting to it from the town centre enables you to say hello to the town bridge and opposite the Swan Hotel, a classic 18th century edifice built by the Duke of Bedford in 1794-1796, that is to say that the Duke of Bedford commissioned it to be built. I am not suggesting that he was out there at the end of the 18th century with a trowel in one hand and a stone in the other.
The Swan Hotel
As hotels go, you are not going to get anything as quintessentially 18th century than this outside of Oundle or Stamford! The current Swan Hotel ~ there was an earlier one ~ had the Duke of Bedford commission the well-known London architect Henry Holland to design and build it between 1794~1796. If you stand on the forecourt, you will notice, I know you will, that contrary to Georgian architectural paradigms, the hotel is asymmetrical. The right-hand gate is missing. It was sacrificed in the 1880s to make way for the The Embankment road, which dissected the hotel’s gardens. Inside the hotel is a curious mix of old Georgian and modern swank.
Had you arrived in Bedford before the 1970s, after appreciating the regality of the Swan you would next have been delighted by the magnificent sight of a large and impressive building of neo-Gothic persuasion. The Town and Country Club, as once had been its function and by which it had been known, was, alas, swept away with numerous other buildings of exemplary historical importance, as former Bedford historian Richard Wildman agonises, during a time in which town planning in Britain was the vandalistic equivalent of social engineering today.
Bedford is by no means the only town in the British Isles that bears the scars of the 1960s’ anti-heritage culture, but, as a leaf through any of Richard Wildman’s pictorial history books show, it has the dubious distinction of listing among the legions of the architecturally damned and demolished more than its fair share of victims.
Bedford more to like than not
So, we pass swiftly on and, as we do, we cannot help admiring the beautifully landscaped and typically English character of the scene as it unfolds. The Great River Ouse meandering calmly away from the city centre, leaving behind lack-lustre Kempston and no-go Queen’s Park, transports you to one of those timeless English vistas replete with sleepy meadows, avenues of trees, formal gardens with floral Victorian beddings, posh rowing clubs, happy swans and geese and some of the finest examples of Gothic Revivalist architecture that you could ever wish to behold in the residential category.
The wealth, prosperity, order, security and dignity all of which was once England presents itself in the large, often vast, red-brick houses and imposing villas that sweep along the Embankment and radiate into the streets beyond. Built in the Gothic Revivalist style at the end of the 19th century, these infinitely desirable properties, with their impressive facades of carved stone, half-timbered gables and deep bay windows, are deceptively more extensive than even the grand scale of their stately frontages suggests. I won’t gild the lily by saying that they seem to go on forever, but some of them tend to go on considerably further than one might expect.
Above: The Embankment Hotel
Unmissable, thanks to its wonderful and evocative medieval-style half-timbered façade, the Embankment Hotel and Restaurant occupies a prime place overlooking Bedford’s Embankment Promenade and the River Great Ouse. The 1891-built hotel boasts that it has no ‘stuffy resident’s bar’, which is all well and good, but what it does have, especially on a Friday and Saturday night, is a very noisy public bar, which does tend to dilute the otherwise genteel image. In its defence, however, try finding a pub in Bedford on a Friday or Saturday night that does not resemble a cattle market! Go there in the week!
The following photographs were taken on a bright, late October morning in 2022. We perambulated with the best of them along the Embankment Prom and then crossed over to the meadows on the other side of the river via the landmark Victorian Suspension Bridge.
Suspension Bridge
Bedford Suspension Bridge, a landmark architectural feature, was constructed in 1888. It provides access from The Embankment to Mill Meadows. The bridge was designed by John James Webster, the remit being to allow the passage of sailing boats.
Butterfly Bridge
And please, don’t ask why do they call it Butterfly Bridge?! It opened in 1997 and was designed by Wilkinson Eyre Architects, reputedly as a late 20th century/early 21st century equivalent to Webster’s 1888 Suspension Bridge, each bridge landmarking the end and beginning of their respective centuries.
Unless you live in a vacuum, believing that this is how it is, how it was and always will be, me and my mobile phone, it should not be incredibly difficult to imagine what scenes of elegance were once to be found as the Edwardian upper classes strutted their decorous stuff along the walk at Bedford Embankment. And if you cannot imagine, use it as an excuse to call in at the Three Cups public house on Newnham Street, where not only will you find an exciting, changing range of delicious British real ales but also framed black and white photographs of Bedford Embankment as it looked at the turn of the 20th century.
Above: A rare sight. The locals of the Three Cups looking more normal than usual on Halloween
Check out the style of the chaps in their striped blazers and boater hats (I am referring now to the pictures on the walls!) and the ladies of quality in their crisp, light dresses or perfectly turned-out dress suits, nipped in at the waist, embellished with lace and other feminine attributes. Yes, there really was a time when the people of the British Isles were not as they are today, less better dressed than a boat load of Navy-escorted grinning migrants.
Bedford, it’s not a bad place. Put it on your visiting list.
More about Bedford
The Embankment War Memorial
The War Memorial on Bedford’s Riverside Walk was sculpted by Charles S Jagger and is situated opposite Rothsay Road. Made from Portland Stone and marble, it commemorates the fallen in three wars: the First World War, Second World War and Korean War.
The Boer War Monument
The impressive and detailed monument that stands in front of the Swan Hotel, Bedford, surmounted by an infantryman in full battledress, pays tribute to the 237 Bedfordshire men who lost their lives in the Boer War, 1899-1902.
John Bunyan statue
Every town is known for someone. In Bedford, it’s mainly John Bunyan, thanks to the large bronze statue of him that stands at the crossroads at the top of Bedford High Street. John Bunyan was about in the mid-to-late 17th century. He was an English Christian writer and dissenter, an occupation that saw him committed to Bedford County Gaol on two occasions. Apart from being locked up, Bunyan was, of course, famous for having authored the Christian allegory The Pilgrim’s Progress, most of which, it seems, was written during the two periods when he was languishing in gaol. The book was eventually published in 1678. This monumental work of literature, which has never been out of print and has been translated into more than 200 languages, influenced many a literary genius, among them Charles Dickens, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville. Bunyan’s Bedford connections and life history are celebrated in the John Bunyan Museum in Beford. The statue is magnificent; the museum a source of serious historical reflection. {photo credit: Simon Speed}
Glenn Miller
The legendary American big band leader, Glenn Miller, was billeted in Bedford, to be more precise in Bedfordshire in Milton Ernest Hall. He took his last fateful flight from Twinwood Airfield, now home to the biggest swing music festival in the UK. A bronze bust of Miller occupies pride of place in a niche in the wall of Bedford Corn Exchange, which was built and opened in 1874, still functions as a concert venue and plays host to the annual Bedford Beer Festival.
Cardington and the airships
Just outside of Bedford lies the old Cardington airbase, what is left of it. Like every other square foot in the UK, it has been covered in concrete and bricks. Because that is what the UK needs: more houses for more people! Nevertheless, the Cardington Sheds still dominant the skyline; the massive hangars in which the great airships of the early 20th century were constructed. It was from these ‘sheds’ that the fated, experimental R101 was hauled out to make its maiden voyage to France, where it crashed killing 48 passengers and crew on board. The remains of the dead are buried in a mass grave in Cardington Cemetery. A monument in the church opposite provides a roll of honour, naming those who lost their lives in this historic misadventure.
John Howard
Most people who are not as thick as two short planks (innit?) will know that the large bronze statue standing at the crossroads to Bedford High Street is John Bunyan. But who is that other chap overlooking the weekly market, holding his face in his right hand and staring pensively down at the ground? That’s Bedford’s second celebrity, the eighteenth-century philanthropist and prison-conditions reformer, John Howard, cast in bronze by the celebrated, if not occasionally controversial, sculptor, Sir Alfred Gilbert, creator of the Eros statue in Piccadilly Circus, London. Whenever I look at the pose and expression of John Howard, I cannot help but think that having watched over the centre of Bedford since 1894, he has accumulated serious doubts as to whether his reformation work was after all a misappropriation of time and effort. He is most likely silently advocating, “Bring back the birch!”. He also has a statue in Ukraine ~ not many people know that!
The Higgins Art Gallery and Museum
A short walk from Bedford Embankment in the area known as the Castle Quarter, The Higgins Art Gallery and Museum, known as The Higgins after Bedford’s prominent Higgin’s family and its connection with the museum site, is the culmination of a six-million-pound project that effectively united three cultural venues: Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford Museum and Bedford Gallery. Higgins, who was a brewer, so he must have been a good man, left detailed instructions in his will as to how the museum would be run and organised. Structurally, the museum is fascinating in itself. It links the old brewery buildings in Castle Lane with the Higgins’ family home and incorporates the Hexagonal Gallery, which was built in the early 19th century on the foundations of Bedford Castle. I like old breweries and social history, so both the industrial building and the Higgins’ family home are sources of wonder to me. The museum provides the opportunity to appreciate impressive collections of fine and decorative arts and highly accredited watercolours, so you can brush up on your knowledge of antiques whilst learning all you need to know about Bedford, its people and the history of the town.
Website: https://www.thehigginsbedford.org.uk/Home.aspx
Image attributions:
Glenn Miller Bust, Corn Exchange Bedford: Simon Speed, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GlennMillerBustBedford.JPG
Bedford Corn Exchange: Simon Speed, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BedfordCornExchange.JPG
John Bunyan Statue Bedford: Simon Speed, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:JohnBunyanStatueBedford.jpg
Cardington Sheds: G1MFG (talk) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cardington_Sheds_9881.JPG
Copyright © 2018-2022 Mick Hart. All rights reserved.
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