Houghton Conquest News and information

Houghton Conquest is a village and civil parish in Bedfordshire, England. The parish also includes the hamlet of How End.

Houghton Conquest has a village shop, post office, a lower School, a village hall, and three pubs.

Houghton Conquest is in Central Bedfordshire Council’s Houghton Conquest and Haynes Ward.

MP: Ms.Nadine Dorries MP

Ward Councillors: Cllr Mrs Angela Barker

From A History of the County of Bedford: Volume 3

Beautifully situated on the top of a hill in the south of the parish stand the ruins of Houghton House, once one of the finest houses in the county. The principal approach was from the south, and there is still to be seen some 150 yds. from the building part of an avenue of lime trees stretching away towards Ampthill.

From the north a magnificent view over the vale of Bedford is obtained, a broad avenue of elms on the slope of the hill forming a delightful vista in the foreground. The house was erected early in the 17th century, and is built of red brick with stone quoins and dressings, though in some of the internal and basement walls local sandstone has been used in conjunction with the brick.

A strict regard to symmetry has been observed in the design of both the plan and elevations. It is in plan a rectangle with projecting end wings on the south, the side walls of which are carried right through the building, while a division wall runs across the house east and west parallel with the front wall. In the centre of the south front is a projecting bay that was carried up the front of the building, serving on the ground floor as the principal entrance. This led into a large hall which was bounded on the north by the main cross wall of the building and extended eastwards as far as the east wing. Between the west wing and the hall was a smaller room. In the centre of the building behind the hall was a vestibule entered from a central open portico on the north.

Citation:
‘Parishes: Houghton Conquest’, in A History of the County of Bedford: Volume 3, ed. William Page (London, 1912), pp. 288-296. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/beds/vol3/pp288-296 [accessed 3 January 2019].