Great Barford, Bedfordshire : Historical writing

Descriptive gazetteer entries

These other entries in our collection of descriptive gazetteers are also about Great Barford. You may be able to find further references to Great Barford in the descriptive gazetteers by doing a full-text search here.

Place Type of entry Source
Barford, Great parish Bartholomew
BARFORD (Great) a parish Imperial
Great Barford parish Bartholomew

Travel writing

This website includes the complete texts of books describing journeys around Britain, written between the twelfth and nineteenth centuries. Selecting one of the links below will take you to the first reference to Great Barford within the selected text. This will not always be a description of a visit: travellers often mention places other than where they are, for example as a basis for comparison.

Traveller Section No. of Refs.
John Byng A Tour of Bedfordshire in 1794: September 5
John Byng A Tour of Bedfordshire in 1794: May 1
Daniel Defoe Letter 1, Part 3: Norfolk and Cambridgeshire 1
Daniel Defoe Letter 7, Part 2: East Midlands 1
Daniel Defoe Appendix to the second volume 1

This website includes two large libraries, of historical travel writing and of entries from nineteenth century gazetteers describing places. We have text from these sources available for these places near your location:

Place Mentioned in Travel Writing Mentioned in Historical Gazetteer
Howbury 0 2
Blunham 3 2
Barford 0 2
Renhold 0 2
Roxton 4 2
Wilden 0 2
Moggerhanger 4 3
Willington 1 2
Cople 4 2
Girtford 5 2
Tempsford 7 2
Colmworth 1 2
Wyboston 4 2
Goldington 1 2
Ravensden 0 2
Wixamtree 0 2
Beeston 5 2
Sandy 11 2
Eaton Socon 22 2
Cardington 2 2

Names from historical writing

The following appear as names for Great Barford. Follow the links for what the author actually said:

Name Author Source
BARFORD John Bartholomew Gazetteer of the British Isles (Edinburgh: Bartholomew, 1887).
John Byng The Torrington Diaries: Containing the tours through England And Wales of the Hon. John Byng (Later Fifth Viscount Torrington) between the years 1781 and 1794 (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1938).
Daniel Defoe A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain, divided into circuits or journies (London: JM Dent and Co, 1927).
John Marius Wilson Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (Edinburgh: A Fullarton & Co., 1870-72).
BARFORD BRIDGE Daniel Defoe A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain, divided into circuits or journies (London: JM Dent and Co, 1927).
BARFORD GREAT John Bartholomew Gazetteer of the British Isles (Edinburgh: Bartholomew, 1887).
John Marius Wilson Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (Edinburgh: A Fullarton & Co., 1870-72).
GREAT BARFORD John Bartholomew Gazetteer of the British Isles (Edinburgh: Bartholomew, 1887).
John Bartholomew Gazetteer of the British Isles (Edinburgh: Bartholomew, 1887).
John Marius Wilson Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (Edinburgh: A Fullarton & Co., 1870-72).

NB: These variant names come from our collections of historical travel writing and descriptive gazetteers:

  • The above links take you to the first reference to this particular version of the name within a book of travel writing, or to the relevant gazetteer entry.
  • Some names may derive from research by antiquarian writers such as William Camden and Thomas Pennant into the Roman, Saxon and medieval names of places. Their claims are not always supported by modern place-name researchers.
  • References by travel writers to the place using its "normal" name are not included. Descriptive gazetteer entries are included only if the name does not appear anywhere else.