Ickwell

Ickwell May Day is an annual celebration held in the village of Ickwell, Bedfordshire. The event is a celebration of May Day, a festival marking the beginning of summer, and has been celebrated from at least 1651. The festival includes elements of traditional English culture, such as morris and maypole dancing. Ickwell is unusual in having a permanent maypole, located on the village green, as well as including adult dancers in its maypole dancing.

Ickwell Bury, at the heart of the former manor of Ickwell, Bedfordshire, was first built by John Harvey in 1683 near the site of an older manor house. The Harvey family continued to own the house until 1925, although from 1900 it had housed Horton Preparatory School.In 1898, Ickwell Bury was the property of John Edmund Audley Harvey DL JP and was described as "a mansion of red brick, in the Queen Anne style, standing in a park and woodlands of about five hundred acres, approached by an avenue of trees about a mile in length".The school closed in 1937, and soon afterwards most of the empty house was destroyed in a fire, though a 17th-century wing with its Thomas Tompion clock were saved. The property was then bought by Colonel George Hayward Wells, chairman of the brewery Charles Wells, who rebuilt the house on a smaller scale and on his death left the Ickwell Bury estate to the Bedford Charity to be used by Bedford School, his own old school. The school uses the grounds for field studies and as a conservation reserve, and for a number of years Ickwell Bury (the house) was rented from the school by the Yoga for Health Foundation and was open all year round. It was especially busy during the summer months where all the rooms were open and tents covered the grounds around the main house. In 1999 Bedford School sold Ickwell Bury and its garden - it is now a private house - and in 2013/14 it sold the remaining 47 hectares of farmland, a cottage, and (with planning permission for conversion to homes) the listed barns of Home Farm. In a wood between Ickwell Bury and Northill church is an ancient earthwork, with a high bank on the east side, enclosing long pools which are thought to have been fish ponds for the monks of a college at Northill or for the priory of Ickwell Bury.

The Shuttleworth Collection is a working aviation, automotive and agricultural collection located at the Old Warden Aerodrome, Old Warden in Bedfordshire, England.

Church of St Mary the Virgin is a Grade I listed church in Northill, Bedfordshire, England. It became a listed building on 31 October 1966.The church's royal arms appears on a stained glass window designed by John Oliver. It is dated 1664, and therefore the arms is that of King Charles II. The window was commissioned by the Worshipful Company of Grocers, whose own arms appears next to the royal arms.

Northill is a village and civil parish in the Central Bedfordshire district of the county of Bedfordshire, England about 6.5 miles (10 km) southeast of the county town of Bedford. The 2011 census showed the population for Northill village as 338 and for the civil parish, 2,270.The parish includes the village of Upper Caldecote and the hamlets of Budna, Lower Caldecote, Hatch, Ickwell and Thorncote Green. Northill has a small village green with duck pond, owned by the parish council.

Old Warden Aerodrome (ICAO: EGTH) is located 6 nautical miles (11 km; 6.9 mi) east southeast of Bedford, in Bedfordshire, England. The privately owned aerodrome serves The Shuttleworth Collection, which contains a large working collection of vintage aircraft, cars, motor cycles and agricultural vehicles and equipment.

Shuttleworth College is a further education college in the village of Old Warden in Bedfordshire, England. The college is part of Bedford College, and mainly offers courses and training related to agriculture and the natural environment.

Wixamtree is an ancient hundred located in Bedfordshire, England. Wixamtree was one of the hundreds of Bedfordshire, with its council being the primary form of local government in its area from the Anglo-Saxon times to the nineteenth century.

The Mansion House, Old Warden Park is a 19th-century country house in Bedfordshire, England, designed by Henry Clutton for Joseph Shuttleworth. The house is managed by The Shuttleworth Trust, established in 1944 by Dorothy Clotilda Shuttleworth in memory of her son Richard Ormonde Shuttleworth (1909–1940).

Thorncote Green (often known only as Thorncote) is a hamlet located in the Central Bedfordshire district of Bedfordshire, England. The settlement is located to the north of the village of Northill, and practically next to Budna. Thorncote Green lies near to the border between Central Bedfordshire and the Borough of Bedford.

Budna is a hamlet in the civil parish of Northill, in Bedfordshire, England. Budna is located to the north of the village of Northill, and near to Thorncote Green and Hatch. Budna lies on the border between Central Bedfordshire and the Borough of Bedford.

Hatch is a hamlet in the Central Bedfordshire district of Bedfordshire, England. It is located a little over a mile south-west of the market town of Sandy, and forms part of the Northill civil parish. Budna and Thorncote Green are located just to the west.