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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Bedford
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(74,000 in 1991) Town on the river Ouse; administrative centre of Bedfordshire. It was already a town in Anglo-Saxon times, but the best-known incident in Bedford's long history is the imprisonment of John *Bunyan. The Bunyan Meeting is a chapel built in 1850 on the site of the barn in which he used to preach. The town is known also for its four schools, two for boys and two for girls, endowed in the 16C by Sir William Harpur and all still surviving. The Cecil Higgins Art Gallery and Museum is an exceptional private collection gathered by Cecil Higgins (1856–1941) and open to the public since 1949 in his own house; it is particularly strong in ceramics, glass and English paintings and watercolours.
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