Ampthill Great Park - Ampthill, Bedfordshire - Place to Walk
Ampthill Great Park or just Ampthill Park is a 160 acre park in Ampthill, Bedfordshire.
The park has a few designated walking trails, taking-in hills and woodland, as well as cricket and football pitches, and children's play areas.
You can read more about this park and learn about the best places to park when you visit from our website at:
Our website also details other places to visit and walk in Bedfordshire, England, and nearby counties.
Places to see in ( Ampthill - UK )
Places to see in ( Ampthill - UK )
Ampthill is a small town and civil parish in Bedfordshire, England, between Bedford and Luton, with a population of about 7,000. It is administered by Central Bedfordshire Council. A regular market has taken place on Thursdays for centuries. The name 'Ampthill' is of Anglo-Saxon origin. The first settlement was called 'Aemethyll', which literally means either 'ant-heap' or 'ant infested hill'. In the Domesday Book, Ampthill is referred to as 'Ammetelle', with the landholder in 1086 being Nigel de la Vast. The actual entry reads: Ammetelle: Nigel de la Vast from Nigel d'Aubigny. A further variation may be 'Hampthull', in 1381.
Ampthill is a commercial centre for surrounding villages; it has several pubs, restaurants, a Waitrose supermarket and a selection of small independent specialist shops. A number of small businesses such as solicitors, estate agents, financial services, hairdressers, music schools and a bookshop are also located in town, with larger businesses found on the commercial and industrial developments on the outskirts, along the town's bypass.
Ampthill is one of the most expensive places to buy a house in Bedfordshire, even in comparison with other mid-Bedfordshire towns such as neighbouring Flitwick, and Cranfield. In a survey, it was found that the majority of Ampthill's workers are employed locally, with around 20% working in Ampthill itself, and most of the remainder travelling to nearby centres of employment such as Bedford, Luton and Milton Keynes. Around 13% of workers commute from Ampthill to London daily.
Ampthill has a non-League football team, Ampthill Town F.C. who play at Ampthill Park. Ampthill Super7s is the local 7-a-side football league. It takes place every Monday and Thursday at Redborne Upper School. The town's rugby union club Ampthill RUFC was established in 1881 and plays in National League 1 the third from top tier league in the English rugby union system
Ampthill is host to an annual Ampthill Festival weekend which includes a live rock music event AmpRocks; acts such as Razorlight and Toploader have performed there. It also includes Ampthill Park Proms, with orchestra and guest singers, highlighted by fireworks. This event is held in Ampthill Great Park, where a temporary soundstage is erected to entertain local residents.
Ampthill has a high concentration of public amenities, including schools, doctors surgeries, a fire and ambulance station. The Bedfordshire Railway & Transport Association is campaigning for the reopening of Ampthill railway station which closed in 1959.
The church of St Andrew ranges in date from Early English to Perpendicular. Houghton House was built in 1621 by Mary, Countess of Pembroke and sister of the poet Sir Philip Sidney. In 1675, the house may have provided the inspiration for 'House Beautiful' in John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress.
( Ampthill - UK ) is well know as a tourist destination because of the variety of places you can enjoy while you are visiting Ampthill . Through a series of videos we will try to show you recommended places to visit in Ampthill - UK
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Ampthill Park & Cooper's Hill (The Firs) - A Tour Around the Streets of Ampthill
AMPTHILL PARK, more accurately Great Park, was formed when Sir John Cornwall purchased the manor of Ampthill from the St Amand family early in the 15th century.
Ampthill Castle, 'stately on a hill with four or five fair towers of stone' occupied a considerable site between the Woburn Road and the top of the hill where Lord Ossory was to put the Katherine Cross centuries later. No contemporary picture of it has yet been found, and some sketchy plans are hard to interpret. But the descriptions of those who saw it tell of an inner and outer court with high walls punctuated by 'fair towers' or turrets. There was no keep, but accommodation was built against the walls, the principal buildings such as the great drawing room and the chapel, being on the hill.
Cornwall died in 1443 and was buried at Blackfriars in London; his wife had died some years earlier. Their only son having been killed In the French wars, the estate passed - after protracted dispute with Cornwall's illegitimate sons - to Lord Edmund Grey of Wrest, who paid 6,500 marks (£4,300) for it in 1454. Lord Edmund's grandson, a gambler and wastrel, forfeited the estate to Henry VII when unable to repay a debt, and Ampthill came into royal ownership. It was Henry VIII who, by making Ampthill a favourite base, brought prosperity and prominence to the town.
The court came down at least once a year, usually in autumn as part of a progress from Windsor to Grafton in Northamptonshire, and although affairs of state received their due attention, the king's chief pastime was hunting.
KATHERINE OF ARAGON, married to Henry for almost 20 years before he began to take steps to end their relationship, was particularly fond of Ampthill, although her confinement here while Cranmer's court at Dunstable Priory decided her fate could not have been a pleasant. The court announced the invalidity of the marriage on 23rd May 1533; she refused to meet the deputation sent to inform her until 3rd July, and then, surrounded by her household and friends, and with great dignity, made her defiant stand that she was the king's true wife.
After Henry's death the castle was neglected, his immediate successors no doubt having no liking for a place with such unhappy associations, and by Queen Elizabeth's time it was becoming ruinous and quite uninhabitable. Royal visitors of that period (and later, like James I who had plans to rebuild the castle) stayed at Great Lodge, the steward's house on the site of the present Park House.
In the 1680s much building work was done at Great Lodge for Diana, Dowager Countess of Ailesbury, who had moved there from Houghton House. After her death John, Lord Ashburnham, whose father had received the park from Charles II in repayment of a loan, planned to extend the house and make it his principal home. For a time Nicholas Hawksmoor was his architect, but his plans were considered too drastic, and first John Lumley of Northampton and then William Winde, were brought in to meet the earl's exacting requirements. But he died before the work was finished and park and house passed eventually into the possession of John, 2nd Earl of Upper Ossory who in the 1770s began a complete reconstruction and enlargement of the house, for which he engaged the architect Sir William Chambers. At the same time he employed Lancelot 'Capability' Brown to landscape the park.
The principal front which for Great Lodge and Lord Ashburnham's house had been facing south was made to face north, the remains of Great Lodge being on that side of the building were swept away, and an imposing main entrance with an impressive flight of steps up to the door at first floor level took its place. New wings were constructed, and the whole building lengthened.
The Katherine Cross was erected by Lord Ossory in 1773 in memory of Queen Katherine of Aragon and has undergone major refurbishment during 2008/9.
A companion to the Katherine Cross was erected by the Duke of Bedford to commemorate the training camp he built (and financed) on this site in World War I. The memorial records the remarkable fact that 10,604 men were brought here, of whom 707 were killed In action. Some of the bronze plates bearing the names of the latter were stolen in 1970.
COOPER'S HILL - known locally as The Firs - is one of the few remaining examples of the heaths, which one stretched across Bedfordshire along the Greensand Ridge. A lowland heath of National importance, it has been designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) by English Nature and was declared a Local Nature Reserve in 1980 by Bedfordshire County Council. Owned by Ampthill Town Council, the heath land is managed by the Wildlife Trust.
A beautiful area highly coloured when the heather is in bloom, is heath is also very delicate and should be treated with great respect.
Ampthill Park (Memorial Sunday)
13th November 2016
Ampthill Park Proms 2017 Promo video
Ampthill Park Proms, promotional video 2017. This is live event videography at its best. The Camera was connected to the big screen, so the audience could see on stage and off stage activity.
Ampthill Park Proms Part 1
Ampthill Festival Committee presented the first Ampthill Park Proms on Saturday June 27th 2009 at 7pm. Starring Ampthill Orchestra, the Ampthill Town Band, Quintessential and Gaynor Keeble.
Luckily the bad weather held just to the south providing us all with a spectacular lightning show while pouring torrential rain on those just a few miles away.
Ampthill Park Nordic Walking
This video is about Nordic Walking in Ampthill Park
Ampthill Park Proms Part 3
Ampthill Festival Committee presented the first Ampthill Park Proms on Saturday June 27th 2009 at 7pm. Starring Ampthill Orchestra, the Ampthill Town Band, Quintessential and Gaynor Keeble.
Luckily the bad weather held just to the south providing us all with a spectacular lightning show while pouring torrential rain on those just a few miles away.
Close of Play
Robert Daws & Amy Robbins read a chapter of PJ Whiteley's excellent new book, Close of Play.
Ampthill Market Square & Kings Arms Path - A Tour Around the Streets of Ampthill
THE MARKET was for centuries crucial to the life of the town, bringing trade from the surrounding villages and generally supporting the local economy. Ampthill market has been held on a Thursday since 1219 and was confirmed by royal charter when the first of a number of annual fairs was authorised. The markets and fairs were for cattle as well as goods, and spilled along the main roads, particularly Dunstable Street, which was known as Cowfair End for a time.
In the mid-1780s, Lord Upper Ossory of Ampthill Park Jed a campaign to Improve the town centre (and increase income from the market) by creating a Market Square in front of a new Market House (now Richardson's), and tidying up the butchers' shambles, which ran from the Market House and into the Oxlet. (The butchers had been particularly unpopular in the 15th century when they were always throwing rotting offal into the town pond, the Oxflood).
A new well was sunk on the Market Square and a pump installed encased in a stone obelisk (the gift of lord Ossory) and surmounted by an oil lamp. The town clock, formerly on the old market house, was set in a new turret surmounted by a cupola, and placed on the 15th century Moot Halll where the manor court met. The Moot Hall (similar to that at Elstow) was pulled down in 1852, and the town clock moved to present Clock House, which replaced it.
From the Market Square two of the town's former coaching inns can be seen, the White Hart, a front of about 1730 on a very much older building once known as the Red Hart, remains in business. The White Hart is Ampthills principal coaching inn. A façade from around 1730 fronts a much older interior. In 1975 a wall painting was discovered under the plaster in the front room depicting the Prince of Wales feathers, dated 1646. The hotel was badly damaged by fire in 2001. The King's Arms, formerly the Crown, now 9 Church Street, has an 18th century front, but is similarly much older; it closed in the 1950s when the ground floor was converted into shops.
In the Kings Arms Yard are ancient buildings used in the 17th century to house needy people at the expense of the parish. It is thought that the roundel of pargetting with crown, fleur-de-lis, the dated 1677 and initials W.H commemorates this use the initials standing for Work House.
The path leads on to me newer parts OT me town passing The Hop Ground, formerly belonging to the White Hart, but now after a century and more of neglect a remarkable garden created from 1967 by William Nourish, and since his death maintained for the Town Council by a group of volunteers. The garden Is open to the public from time to time.
Gettin DWN in AMPTHILL
From da newest rap sensation in TWN. Enjoy m8s peace out
Luv Munky Wrench and Dizzly Dee x
china town ampthill town fc rugby flitwick maulden clophill church bedfordshire bedford luton leagrave harlington redborne upper school ampthill tv centre clock tower waitrose dr dre sweet sensations bows emily atack robert daws news china town ampthill festival footage amprocks fran bove westoning milton keynes train station 2013 2014 shaylers costa engine and tender the albion race three legged criminal damage dunstable party tune rap mc freestyle mc battle cool BIG OLD NAN
Abandoned Kid's Home - Ampthill - England
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Jamie Partridge
William Munro
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Panasonic HDC-MDH1
Panasonic HDC-SD40
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The reason why i have setup this account is to share the places that we go to with others. this consists of haunted locations and abandoned places. the main reason why i setup this account is because being in an abandoned building or haunted place makes you think allot about the history there and what happened there. and who was the last person to be there. Me and a few of my friends will be going to haunted locations and abandoned places to show you what they are like and what creepy vibes they give us.
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Park View 4-3 Ampthill Town League Amps Goals and Chances 16th Feb 2019
Amps Action from the Game in London on Saturday.
Houghton House, Ampthill, Bedfordshire, UK
Two quick visits (2nd June and 3rd August 2014) with my DJI Phantom and Go Pro Hero 3+ Black followed by a bit of Serif Movie Plus X6 magic.
Music: At The Order Of Fire by Thieves Of The American Dream.
Ampthill Town Development 1-8 Ampthill Town (Firsts) Pre Season Match Goals 13th July 2019
An excellent Game and a Good Run out for Both Sides Pre Season.Jamie Cerminara was in Excellent Form Hitting Five Goals for the First Team and Brandon Carney Scored an excellent Goal.Well done Both Teams.I Was Road Testing a new Camera Today which worked ok despite a few teething problems.Apologs if I Missed any Football Type Language in the edits.
Armistice Day 2016 - at The Cenotaph in Ampthill, Bedfordshire
Armistice Day 2016 - on 11 November the Alameda Middle School gathered at The Cenotaph in Ampthill, Bedfordshire.
Mrs Harvey (Head of History) read out the names of service men who lost their lives in the First World War who have a family connection to pupils or staff at the school. A bugle sounded The Last Post and more than 700 people observed the 2 minute silence in the woodland glade.
Tommy's Footprints:
Ampthill jumps / trails GoPro pov
Flitwick / Ampthill bmx track 2019
Ampthill 1881 v Henley Bulls
Zoo 1 League match 2015-2016
Ealing Trailfinders 77-26 Ampthill: Match Highlights
See all 15 tries from the high-scoring thriller in Round Nine of the Greene King IPA Championship.
Snow in Ampthill
Bedfordshire uk