Clophill

Silsoe is a village and civil parish in Bedfordshire, England. The village used to be on the main A6 road but a bypass around the village was opened in 1981 at a cost of £1.6m.

The present St Mary's Church is located in the centre of the small village of Clophill, between Bedford and Luton in the South Midlands of England. The new church, built in 1848, replaced the old church by order of the Church Commissioners in 1850. The old church building, formally The Church of St Mary The Virgin (shortened to The Church of St Mary) and known colloquially as Old St Mary's or The Old Parish Church, is at the edge of the village, and is estimated to be around 650 years old. It sits at the crest of the Greensand Ridge, offering views over the surrounding countryside. Its graveyard is a haven for wild flowers and wildlife. After the church moved to the village centre, incorporating various items from the old church building, the old building was converted for use as a mortuary chapel, but in the 1950s it fell into ruin. The Church of England no longer has responsibility for the Old Parish Church, nor is it deemed to be consecrated; legally it is the responsibility of Central Bedfordshire Council. It acquired first local, then more widespread, notoriety in the 1960s, as a result of the desecration of a number of the church's graves, with the attendant sensationalist suspicions of Satanism and black masses. In 2010 Central Bedfordshire Council, prompted by local activists concerned with the condition of the church, announced it would attempt to restore the Old Church and adopt it for use as a bothy on a regional walking trail. Those plans proved too expensive for the council; instead, in 2012 a new project was announced, which included stabilising the existing ruin and providing a viewing platform on the top of the tower, besides building a heritage centre next to the church.

Maulden Heath is a 7.6-hectare (19-acre) Site of Special Scientific Interest in Maulden in Bedfordshire. It was notified in 1986 under Section 28 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, and the local planning authority is Central Bedfordshire Council. The site is owned by the Forestry Commission and managed by The Greensand Trust.There are two separate meadows in the site. The eastern meadow has two ridges, which have short grass, a moss layer and many herbs. The western meadow is a steep-sided valley which has similar habitats. There is access by a footpath from the Deadman's Hill car park.

Maulden Wood is a woodland situated in Bedfordshire, England, near the village of Maulden, on the greensand ridge that stretches from Leighton Buzzard to Gamlingay. It includes Maulden Wood and Pennyfather's Hill, a 148.8 hectare, biological Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).

Cainhoe Castle was an 11th-century Norman castle, located near the village of Clophill, in the county of Bedfordshire, England. Cainhoe Castle was a motte and triple bailey castle, built by Nigel d'Aubigny, a Norman Knight, sometime after the Norman Invasion (1066). It was not mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086; "Cainou: Nigel d'Aubigny; Thurstan from Avelina, Ralph Tailbois' wife. Mill." The d'Aubigny family, known for being deeply involved in the crusades, used the castle as the seat of the Barony of Cainhoe. The castle was to stay in the d'Aubigny family until the death of Simon d'Aubigny, who died without a male heir, in 1272. It then passed to the de Lacys and the Nortons, and then on to the Greys, Earls of Kent. The castle was occupied until the time of the Black Death (1348), when all the inhabitants died of the disease. The castle, and the small village that had built up around it, were discovered abandoned sometime later. By 1374 the castle was in ruins. The site was excavated in 1973, 1985 and 1986. Only earthworks remain. The site is a Scheduled Monument.

Wrest Park is a country estate located in Silsoe, Bedfordshire, England. It comprises Wrest Park, a Grade I listed country house, and Wrest Park Gardens, also Grade I listed, formal gardens surrounding the mansion.

Haynes is a village and civil parish in Bedfordshire, England, about seven miles (11 km) south of Bedford. It includes the small hamlet of Haynes Church End. It used to be known as Hawnes. North from Haynes is a hamlet named Silver End, then further up is Herrings Green, Cotton End and Shortstown. There is a pub, "The Greyhound", a shop, a post office, a village hall and a Lower School. In 1730 the philosopher John Gay became Vicar of Wilshamstead (later adding the living of Haynes).

Maulden Church Meadow is a 4.1-hectare (10-acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest in Maulden in Bedfordshire. It was notified in 1987 under section 28 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, and the local planning authority is Central Bedfordshire Council. Most of it (3.3 hectares) is also a Local Nature Reserve, owned and managed by Central Bedfordshire Council.The site is unimproved pasture on the Lower Greensand Ridge. It is a scarce environment due to modern agricultural methods. Most of it is neutral grassland with many grass and herb species, and there are small areas of acidic grassland. An open pond has aquatic plants, while two ponds which have been filled in have a varied marsh vegetation. Hedges and trees provide shelter for butterflies and dragonflies. There are many anthills produced by yellow meadow ants.There is access from the end of Church Lane.

The Ailesbury Mausoleum situated in the churchyard of St Mary's Church, Maulden, in Bedfordshire, is a Grade II listed structure built in 1656 by Thomas Bruce, 1st Earl of Elgin (1599–1663) (father by his 1st wife of Robert Bruce, 2nd Earl of Elgin, 1st Earl of Ailesbury (1626-1685)), of nearby Houghton House in the parish of Maulden, for the purpose of housing the coffin and "splendid monument" of his second wife, Lady Diana Cecil (d. 1654), a daughter of William Cecil, 2nd Earl of Exeter and widow of Henry de Vere, 18th Earl of Oxford. In the opinion of the architectural historian Sir Howard Colvin (1991) it is one of the first two free-standing mausoleums ever built in England, together with the Cabell Mausoleum at Buckfastleigh in Devon.

Haynes Church End is located in the Central Bedfordshire district of Bedfordshire, England. The settlement is close to the larger villages of Houghton Conquest and Haynes. Haynes Church End forms part of the Haynes civil parish and contains the Grade-II*-listed parish church of St Mary the Virgin, as well as Haynes Park.

Beadlow Priory was a monastic foundation established between 1140 and 1146 by Robert D'Albini for a community of Benedictine monks.

The Woburn Sands Formation is a geological formation in England. Part of the Lower Greensand Group, it is the only unit of the group where it occurs, and thus is sometimes simply referred to as the 'Lower Greensand' in these areas. It was deposited during the late Aptian to early Albian stages of the Early Cretaceous. The lithology consists of sandstone or loose sand with rare wisps or thin seams of clay. The formation was extensively exploited in the 19th century for the "coprolite industry", with coprolite being a local term referring to phosphate nodules of varying origins (often the internal moulds of shells), named due to their resemblance to real coprolites. The formation contains reworked fossils of late Tithonian-Berriasian age from deposits that are no longer found locally, equivalent in age to the Sandringham Sand Formation in Norfolk and the Spilsby Sandstone of Lincolnshire, these include Dicranodonta and the ammonite Subcraspedites. Reworked dinosaur material is known from the Potton locality within the formation.