Kempston

Be The Lord Of The Manor In Kempston

There are some lovely places to visit in Bedfordshire – plenty of gardens, major attractions, wildlife parks and stately homes. The county also has a number of manors, unlike many of the other counties in England today, and most of them are in the same place, Kempston, thus making it easier for you to visit them all during the course of a day!

Kempston occupies a beautiful area in Bedfordshire that is full of history, which translates in various attractions there today! It was founded in the Anglo Saxon period so there is an awful lot of history to cover there. It once belonged to the brother of King Harold before the Battle of Hastings, during which both men were killed. Afterwards, it went through a number of hands before modern legal and political boundaries were drawn.

The first building of note here is All Saints Parish Church. Judith of Lens, the wife of then Earl of Northampton Waltheof, founded and had erected. There was a convent on the site, which was open in 1086. The Benedictine Convent for Nuns at Elstow was an integral part of Kempston for some years afterwards and the site can still be visited today. However, although this is a major factor in attracting visitors to the area, it is not the main one. This honour instead lies with the manors!

Manors began cropping up in Kempston in around 1237. There are two main ones to visit. Firstly, there is Daubney. Daubney Manor was only known as that when the King handed it to the Daubney family in 1333. It is now the Manor House next to the town council building and is open for you to take a look around. The second is Greys, which I otherwise known as Hastingsbury. This building does not exist any more but there has been a new manor erected to replicate what the original would have been like. You can really connect with history via these places and they make for a different and entirely positive day out so you must pencil the town in your diary!