From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

Great Barford

Village in Bedfordshire, England

Summary

Village in Bedfordshire, England

Field	Value
official_name	Great Barford
country	England
coordinates
static_image_name	Post Office and High Street, Great Barford - geograph.org.uk - 449735.jpg
static_image_caption	Post Office and High Street
population	1,930
population_ref
2,003 (2011 Census)
unitary_england	Bedford
lieutenancy_england	Bedfordshire
region	East of England
constituency_westminster	North Bedfordshire
post_town	BEDFORD
postcode_district	MK44
postcode_area	MK
dial_code	01234
os_grid_reference	TL126545

2,003 (2011 Census) Great Barford is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Bedford, Bedfordshire, England, around 5 miles north-east of Bedford town centre. It lies on the River Great Ouse at . It is twinned with Wöllstein, Germany. The village is bypassed by the busy A421 road on the way between the M1 near Milton Keynes and the A1 near St Neots.

The village is known for its All Saints Church, with a 15th-century tower, and its similarly ancient bridge . The surroundings and historic buildings make it a favoured destination for canoeing, angling and picnics. Nearby places include Renhold and Blunham.

History

Great Barford was mentioned in the Domesday Book as an important site, probably as a means of crossing the river that skirts the village. Although the area of the original ford was dug up in 1973, the bridge has existed since at least the 15th century.

The village itself is large and scattered but the majority of the houses are in the south-east of the parish. Throughout the village there are a large variety of houses some dating to the 17th century.

The village was once home to Great Barford Castle , a Norman motte and bailey castle, which stood to the north of the village, but a priory has since been built on its location.

A very early reference to Barford may perhaps be found in a charter by which Offa, King of Mercia, in 792 confirmed various lands to the monastery of St. Albans. The charter purports to have been granted in the place which is called 'Æt beranforda.' The text of the charter is certainly spurious, but the witnesses and dating clause may well have been taken from a genuine instrument. Even so, however, the identification with the present Barford cannot be considered certain.

Education

As part of Bedford Borough, Great Barford no longer shares a three-tier schooling system and is now home to a primary school (Great Barford Primary Academy).

For secondary school education, students of Great Barford are in the catchment area of Sandy Secondary School in the nearby market town of Sandy and also of Mark Rutherford School in the town of Bedford. Mark Rutherford School is now the main catchment area school for the village, following the adoption of the two tier education system.

References

Bedfordshire County Council, [http://www.bedford.gov.uk/council_and_democracy/statistics_and_census/population_estimatesforecasts.aspx Population Estimates and Forecasts] {{webarchive. link. (21 October 2009 , estimate for 2007.)
"Civil Parish population 2011". Office for National Statistics.

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

villages-in-bedfordshire populated-places-on-the-river-great-ouse civil-parishes-in-bedfordshire borough-of-bedford

Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about Great Barford — get instant answers, deeper analysis, and related topics.

Research with Mako

Free with your Surf account

Content sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This content may have been generated or modified by AI. CloudSurf Software LLC is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Always verify important information from primary sources.

Report