Toddington

Village green, church and public house are all in close proximity, but the village atmosphere in Toddington was already under threat at the time of this photograph. The one-time manor is sited very close to the M1 motorway, and the whole area has undergone considerable development because of the demand for housing within reach of London. Affluence has crept into the photograph; both the Vauxhall cars shown carry late registration plates.
An extract from from"Bedfordshire Photographic Memories".

An unusually quiet picture is presented by Toddington’s village green. The proximity of a motorway junction, and a service station close to that, has removed any residual tranquillity in recent years. For the nostalgic, however, this image is one to treasure. Georgian houses, thatched roofs, the war memorial and a village pub make a pleasurable combination.
An extract from from"Bedfordshire Photographic Memories".

Dedicated to St George of England (note the full title), the parish church at Toddington is so similar to its counterpart in Houghton Regis, just a few miles away, that it should be suggested that only the same masons could have built it. There is a low mound beside the church that houses the remains of Toddington Castle. Local legend says that a witch is imprisoned within the mound and that you can hear her cooking pancakes if you put your ear to the ground on Easter Day.
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".