Bedfordshire is a county in England and forms part of the East of England region.

Its county town is Bedford. It borders Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire (with the Borough of Milton Keynes) and Hertfordshire.

The highest elevation point is 243 metres (797 feet), on the Dunstable Downs in the Chilterns. The county motto is "Constant Be."

John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72) notes that the highest point in Bedfordshire is Kensworth, at 904 feet.

Kensworth was, until 1897, a part of Hertfordshire.

As part of a 2002 marketing campaign, the plant conservation charity Plantlife chose the Bee Orchid as the county flower. County flowers in Britain www.plantlife.org.uk.

Most English counties have nicknames for people from that county, such as a Tyke from Yorkshire and a Yellowbelly from Lincolnshire; the traditional nickname for people from Bedforshire is 'Bedfordshire Bulldogs' or 'Clangers', this last deriving from the popular local dish comprising a suet crust dumpling filled with meat or jam or both.

History

Main article: History of Bedfordshire

The first recorded use of the name was in 1011 as "Bedanfordscir," meaning "Beda's ford" (river crossing).

Bedfordshire was historically divided into the nine hundreds: Barford, Biggleswade, Clifton, Flitt, Manshead, Redbournestoke, Stodden, Willey, Wixamtree, along with the liberty and borough of Bedford.

Luton was part of Bedfordshire until 1997, when it was made a unitary authority. However, it remains part of the ceremonial county of Bedfordshire, with a single Lord Lieutenant representing the sovereign throughout this entire area. Except where otherwise indicated, this article relates to the whole Ceremonial County of Bedfordshire, including Luton.

Geography and geology

The southern end of the county is part of the chalk ridge known as the Chiltern Hills. The remainder is part of the broad drainage basin of the River Great Ouse and its tributaries.

Most of Bedfordshire's rocks are clays and sandstones from the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, with some limestone. Local clay has been used for brick-making at Fletton. Glacial erosion of chalk has left the hard flint nodules deposited as gravel — this has been commercially extracted in the past at pits which are now lakes, at Priory Country Park, Wyboston and Felmersham.

Economy

This is a chart of trend of regional gross value added of Bedfordshire at current basic prices published (pp.240-253) by Office for National Statistics with figures in millions of British Pounds Sterling.

	Agriculture	Industry	Services
1995	4,109	81	1,584	2,444
2000	4,716	53	1,296	3,367
2003	5,466	52	1,311	4,102

includes hunting and forestry

includes energy and construction

includes financial intermediation services indirectly measured

Components may not sum to totals due to rounding

Transport

Although not a major transport destination, Bedfordshire lies on many of the main transport routes which link London to the Midlands and Northern England.

Roads

Three of England's six main trunk roads pass through Bedfordshire:
* The A1 London to Edinburgh road (The Great North Road) runs close by Biggleswade and Sandy
* The A5 London to Holyhead road (Watling Street), passes through Dunstable
* The A6 St Albans to Carlisle, through Luton and Bedford

To these were added in 1959 the M1 motorway London to Yorkshire motorway. This has three junctions around Luton, and one serving Bedford and Milton Keynes.

Railways

Again, three of England's main lines pass through Bedfordshire:
* The West Coast Main Line has but a short section in the far west of the county. The one station at Leighton Buzzard is served by Silverlink trains to Euston and Northampton.
* The East Coast Main Line has stations at Arlesey, Biggleswade and Sandy, served by First Capital Connect services to King's Cross and Peterborough
* The Midland Main Line serves Luton and Bedford with trains to many destinations operated by Midland Mainline and First Capital Connect.

There are rural services also running between Bedford and Bletchley along the Marston Vale Line.

Taxis

Bedfordshire is well served by a large number of taxi companies, in particular, Luton is noted for having the highest amount of taxi cabs per head of population in the United Kingdom with companies such as Cabco, Britannia cars and Five twos competing for work in the town and from London Luton Airport

Waterways

The River Great Ouse links Bedfordshire to the Fenland waterways. As of 2004 there are plans to construct a canal linking the Great Ouse at Bedford to the Grand Union Canal at Milton Keynes, 23 km distant [1].