Southill
Timeline
Places > Southill
15th Century: The church dates mainly from this period. As the list of vicars begins in 1225 the church presumably stands on the site of an older building from which the decorated window at the north-west end of the north aisle may have come. Evidence from wills indicates that the north aisle was under construction in 1522-24.
1704: Admiral John Byng was born in Southill, Bedfordshire, the fourth son of George Byng, Lord Torrington. He was controversially condemned to death for failing to relieve Minorca.
1726: Admiral John Byng built Southill House and set out the park and gardens at a cost which apparently strained his considerable fortune. The house was completed by November 1726.
1795: Samuel Whitbread purchased the Southill Estate from the Byng family and appointed Henry Holland to remodel the house. He succeeded in transforming Southill House between 1795 and 1806. Nikolaus Pevsner says of the house "Southill is one of the most exquisite English understatements. That so refined and reticent a house could be demanded in 1795 by a brewer is a telling illustration of the rarely admitted cultural possibilities of the Industrial Revolution of the Georgian Era."
1797: Southill Enclosure Act.
1805: Baptist church built.
1814: Extensive repairs carried out on Southill church which amounted to a virtual rebuilding, the church was re-opened on Sunday 20th November.
1820: The game book of Southill Estate shows that in 1820, 346 pheasants, 719 partridges and 358 hares were shot. William Henry Whitbread built a school in the village.
1856: Work began on building Southill station which had a private waiting room for the Whitbread family. The Bedford-Hitchin Line was opened on the 7th May 1857 with the first train leaving Hitchin at 7.30am calling at Southill at 8.15am and reaching Bedford at 9.00am
1866: Extension to the school added.
1885: Southill Cricket Club formed, first recorded match against Shefford at Chicksands.
1939-45: Evacuees from London, by September 1939 the number of children attending Southill School had increased from 70 to 160.
1962: Southill Station closed on the 1st January, it survives as a private house.
1983: New Almshouses built in Howard's Close.
Sources:
- Newspaper articles in Bedford Central Local Studies Collection
- Victoria County History of Bedfordshire. 3 Vols. 1912.
- PEVSNER, N The buildings of England: Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough, 1968
- PICKFORD, Chris Bedfordshire Churches in the 19th Century Vol.79 Bedfordshire Historical Record Society 2000.
- BELL, P. editor Southill and the Whitbreads 1795-1995 : a collection of essays. 1995.
Page last updated: 4th February 2014