Woburn Introduction

 

Name and Landscape

Woburn is first recorded in a charter of King Edgar granting land in Aspley Guise, it is referred to as Woburninga gemære. In the Domesday Book of 1086 it is called Woberne. The name means "winding stream" from the Old English words woh (twisted) and burna. The parish contains nearly 3,500 acres and is thickly wooded in parts, the soil is greensand, it is around 375 feet above sea level.

Domesday

The Domesday Book of 1086 records that Woburn was split between two landowners. The King's reeves and almsmen held three virgates| (along with half a hide| in Eversholt and a hide in Potsgrove). However, the great majority of the settlement - ten hides - was owned by Walter Giffard and his tenant Hugh de Bolbec. The manor also comprised 8 villagers, 7 smallholders and 4 slaves. There was enough woodland for 100 pigs and in 1066 the manor had been held by a thegn of King Edward the Confessor - Alric, when it was worth £15. This value had fallen by the time Giffard acquired it to £12 and by 1086, due to the depredations of William I's armies, had fallen still further to just £5.

Manor

Hugh de Bolbec became overlord of the Manor shortly after Domesday, though it is not clear whether this Bolbec is the tenant in 1086 or, perhaps, his son. In 1145 Hugh de Bolbec the younger founded the Cistercian Abbey and endowed it with the Manor. The grant was confirmed by King Stephen [reigned 1135 to 1154] and later monarchs and the Abbey continued to hold the manor until it was dissolved in 1539. At this date the manor was assessed as being worth £67/1/5. A letter from Thomas Cromwell to George Giffard, dated 1538, advised the latter to request the King for the manor, based on his family's ownership under William I. Evidently Giffard did not follow the advice and in 1542 the manor was annexed to the newly created Honour of Ampthill. Five years later the new king, Edward VI granted the manor, abbey buildings, fairs and market to Lord John Russell, who was created 1st Earl of Bedford two years later. The Earls, later the Dukes of Bedford continued as Lords of the Manor until manors ceased to exist as legal entities in the early twentieth century.

Woburn Abbey

Of the Cistercian abbey no trace remains, tradition states that the current stately home was built on the site of the cloister. A drawing of 1661 does not show any medieval architecture and the present building was almost entirely rebuilt to the design of Henry Flitcroft around 1746. The park in which the abbey is set contains about 5,000 acres extending into Husborne Crawley, Steppingley and Eversholt.

The side of 19 Market Place - a street called Back Lane ran from where the low red brick wall stands behind the shops in the Market Place (now through the rear extensions of those shops) to a point near the church

Local Importance and Relative Decline

Woburn was long a market town, the original charter, for a weekly market on a Friday, being granted to the Abbey by King Henry III in 1245. He also granted the right to hold a three day fair in September each year (a spiritual ancestor of the recently created Oyster Festival). The local importance of the market can be seen at a glance by the number of inns, public houses and beerhouses the town once contained. Ironically, King Henry VIII awarded two additional fairs to the Abbey, one in March, the other in July, just nine years before he dissolved the institution.

A market hall was erected in 1737 by the fourth Duke of Bedford the today the Town Hall, rebuilt in 1834, occupies the site (now filled with antique shops). The town has had a number of fires, the first on 13 September 1595 resulting from a cottage fire, the second in November 1645, during the Civil War as the result of a raid by Royalist troops which destroyed 27 houses in the north end and the third in June 1724 which destroyed 39 houses.

Woburn has declined somewhat in importance in the 20th century. It used to have its own Petty Sessional (Magistrates Court) District and its own Workhouse, receiving paupers from neighbouring parishes and Poor Law Union to run it. The Petty Sessional District was created in 1830 and dissolved in 1953. The Poor Law Union, created in 1835, was dissolved in 1899. Woburn's main importance now is as a place for tourists visiting Woburn Abbey and the Safari Park.