Shefford, Bedfordshire

Description
Shefford, a small market-town and a township-chapelry in Campton parish, Beds. The town stands on the river Ivel, and on the Bedford and Hitchin branch of the M.R., on which it has a station, 9 1/2 miles SE of Bedford. It consists of spacious, well-paved, well-lighted, and cleanly streets, which are kept in good order out of the proceeds of an estate bequeathed to the town in the reign of Elizabeth by Robert Lucas. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office (R.S.O.), a good inn, a subscription library and reading room, a weekly market on Friday, and a fair on Oct. 11. The land around the town is well-cultivated, and large quantities of onions and potatoes are grown for the London markets. Many fine lloman relics were found in a field adjoining the town, and were purchased for the Fitzwilliam museum in Cambridge. There is also a Roman camp at Stanford Bury, about a mile north of the town, which has furnished some exquisite specimens of Roman glass. The living is a chapelry annexed to Campton; and the church, a plain building of stone, with a tower of 14th century date, is a chapel of ease to Campton. There is a Roman Catholic church, which was opened in 1884, and there are a Roman Catholic orphanage and a seminary for priests. Other places of worship are Baptist and Wesleyan chapels. The poet Blomfield lived for some years in this town, and died here in 1823. Area of the township, 144 acres; population, 990; of the ecclesiastical district, with Campton, 1438.