Bedfordshire

Location Quiz Nearby Places Géographie physique Géographie humaine Histoire Économie Administration locale Circonscriptions nationales

Le Bedfordshire /ˈbed.fədʃə(ɹ)/, parfois abrégé Beds, est un comté d'Angleterre. Il doit son nom à sa capitale, la ville de Bedford. Il est situé dans le sud-est du pays et jouxte les comtés du Cambridgeshire, du Northamptonshire, du Buckinghamshire (avec la ville de Milton Keynes), et du Hertfordshire. La devise du comté est « Soit constant ».[réf. nécessaire]

Location

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Nearby Places

List of local nature reserves in Bedfordshire

Bedfordshire is a county in the East of England. It is bounded by Hertfordshire to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Northamptonshire to the north, and Buckinghamshire to the west. It has an area of 1,235 square kilometres, and a population estimated in 2016 at 640,000, with an increase of 11% over the previous ten years. Geographically, it is mainly rural, but still the fourteenth most densely populated county of England, with over half the population living in the two largest built-up areas, Luton and Bedford. The county is governed by three unitary authorities, Bedford, Central Bedfordshire and Luton. The county town is Bedford, and the name is first recorded in the treaty in about 879 between King Alfred the Great and Guthrum, which divided English and Danish territory by a line which went through Bedford. Much of Luton and southern Bedfordshire lies in the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. North and mid Bedfordshire are undulating claylands with broad river valleys of the River Great Ouse and its tributaries, and the Bedfordshire Greensand Ridge. Jurassic and Cretaceous clays are overlaid by Quaternary glacial deposits of chalky boulder clay. Local nature reserves are designated by local authorities under the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949. The local authority must have a legal control over the site, by owning or leasing it, or having a legal agreement with the owner. LNRs are sites which have a special local interest either biologically or geologically, and local authorities have a duty to care for them. They can apply local bye-laws to manage and protect LNRs. As of March 2016 there are twenty local nature reserves in Bedfordshire: eight in Bedford, eleven in Central Bedfordshire and one in Luton. The largest is Harrold-Odell Country Park with 59.3 hectares; it is a former quarry on the bank of the River Great Ouse which has river meadows and two lakes. The smallest is Hill Rise at 0.9 hectares; it is close to Bedford town centre and surrounded on three sides by houses, but it has a variety of habitats. There is public access to all the sites.

Park

List of Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Bedfordshire

Government Landmark

Bedfordshire

Bedfordshire is a ceremonial county in the East of England. It is bordered by Northamptonshire to the north, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Hertfordshire to the south-east and south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. The largest settlement is Luton. The county has an area of 1,235 km2 and had an estimated population of 749,943 in 2024. Luton is in the south of the county, and Dunstable neighbours it to the west. Leighton Buzzard is in the south-west, and Bedford in the centre-north. For local government purposes Bedfordshire comprises three unitary authority areas: Bedford, Central Bedfordshire, and Luton. The centre of Bedfordshire is a gently undulating clay plateau, out of which rises a ridge of greensand that runs south-west to north-east and which has a distinct north-facing escarpment. The south of the county, around Luton, contains part of the chalk Chiltern Hills, and the north of the county part of a limestone ridge that runs between Milton Keynes and Northampton. The county's highest point is at 243 m on the Dunstable Downs, which are part of the Chilterns. The River Great Ouse flows through Bedfordshire, entering upstream of Harrold in the north-east and flowing in a circuitous but broadly southerly route to Bedford before turning north-east to exit the county upstream of St Neots in Cambridgeshire.

Landmark Neighbourhood

Herrings Green

Herrings Green is a hamlet in the civil parish of Cotton End, 4 miles south-east of Bedford in the ceremonial county of Bedfordshire, England. The settlement is close to Cotton End and Wilstead. Until 2019 Herrings Green formed part of Eastcotts civil parish. Herring's Green Farmhouse on Cotton End Road is Grade II listed. Landowner, Samuel Whitbread had the farmhouse rebuilt in 1785–6. It has two storeys plus attics under two separate and parallel Dutch gabled roofs, architecturally known as a "double-pile plan". The listing notes this is an "unusual feature" in Bedfordshire.

Historic Site Landmark

Eastcotts Castle

Eastcotts Castle was a medieval castle located in the parish of Eastcotts, at the edge of Exeter Wood, in the county of Bedfordshire, England. Eastcotts Castle is believed to have been constructed during the late 11th, or early 12th, centuries. It was a small motte castle, made of timber, located on the northern edge of the Bedfordshire Greensand Ridge. It was in a prime location, overlooking the village of Cardington, as well as the River Ouse. Only earthworks remain at the site, which is a Scheduled Monument, located in Exeter Wood, 780m south east of Wood Farm.

Historic Site Landmark

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Géographie physique

La majeure partie du comté se situe dans le bassin versant du Great Ouse. La partie sud est dominée par l'escarpement crayeux des Chilterns, où se situe le point culminant du comté, dans les Dunstable Downs (243 m).

Géographie humaine

Plus de la moitié des habitants du Bedfordshire vit dans les villes de Luton (236 000 hab.) et Bedford (102 000 hab.).

Histoire

La première mention du nom du comté date de 1011 en tant que Bedanfordscir. Ce nom signifie simplement « comté de Bedford », le nom de la ville de Bedford signifiant quant à lui « le gué de Beda ». Historiquement, le Bedfordshire est divisé en neuf hundreds : Barford (en), Biggleswade (en), Clifton, Flitton, Manshead (en), Redbournestoke, Stodden, Willey (en), Wixamtree (en), plus la ville de Bedford.

Économie

Le siège de l'entreprise Jordans est situé à Biggleswade dans le Bedfordshire.

Administration locale

Le Bedfordshire est administré de 1889 à 2009 par le conseil de comté du Bedfordshire (en), d'abord en tant que comté administratif, puis en tant que comté non métropolitain à partir de 1974. La ville de Luton, qui constituait un borough de comté indépendant de 1964 à 1974, est à nouveau séparée du reste du Bedfordshire en devenant une autorité unitaire en 1997. Le 1er avril 2009, le conseil de comté du Bedfordshire est aboli et le comté cesse d'être une entité administrative. Le borough de Bedford devient à son tour une autorité unitaire, tandis que les anciens districts non métropolitains du Mid Bedfordshire et du South Bedfordshire sont combinés pour former une troisième autorité unitaire, le Central Bedfordshire. Néanmoins, la plupart des services du comté continuent à être assurés de manière conjointe par le borough de Bedford et le district du Central Bedfordshire, comme s'ils constituaient encore une autorité commune.

Circonscriptions nationales

Le Bedfordshire comprend six circonscriptions électorales pour les élections à la Chambre des communes du Royaume-Uni, dont une (Hitchin) s'étend aussi sur une partie du Hertfordshire voisin.