Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire
Historical Description
Woburn Abbey, the seat of the Duke of Bedford, in Woburn parish, Beds, still retains its conventual name, although the ancient building has wholly disappeared. The present mansion was erected about 1744 by John, fourth Duke of Bedford, and is a noble quadrangular structure of Totternhoe stone in the Italian style. The west or principal front is 27 2 feet in length, and among the numerous apartments of the mansion are a saloon 35½ feet by 25½, a library 50 feet by 24½, and a picture gallery 111½ feet by 17½. The north corridor, 170 feet in length, is filled with bronzes, plaster casts, vases, and tazze, and the south corridor, of the same length as the north, contains some beautiful drawings in red chalk after Raphael, and an interesting series of models of English cattle. The mansion contains a rich collection of paintings, sculptures, and other works of art, and stands in a richly ornate deer park about 12 miles in circumference.
Land and Property
The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Bedfordshire is available to browse.
Maps
Online maps of Woburn Abbey are available from a number of sites:
- Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- Google Streetview.
- National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
- OpenStreetMap.
- old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
- Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)
Newspapers and Periodicals
The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Bedfordshire papers online: