Places to explore near Bedford

The romantic ruined shell of a 1621 mansion above Ampthill, reputedly Bunyan's 'House Beautiful', commanding views across the Marston vale.

10.3 km S

Estate village of picture-book thatched cottages, restored by the Shuttleworth family, with the Swiss Garden and vintage aerodrome on its doorstep.

10.4 km SE · Bedfordshire

A Capability Brown parkland on the Greensand Ridge with wide views, ancient oaks and Katherine's Cross marking a lost Tudor palace.

10.9 km S

A theatrical Regency Swiss garden of winding paths, follies and a chalet cottage.

11.1 km SE

Riverside village west of Bedford known for its picturesque Ouse bridge, green with a round lock-up, and adjoining country park.

12.1 km NW · Bedfordshire

Greene King ales fetched by the jug straight from the cellar in a quarry-tiled village pub with no bar counter.

13.9 km SE

The RSPB's headquarters wrapped in over a hundred acres of woodland, heath and formal gardens on the Greensand Ridge, laced with nature trails.

14.1 km E

French-style mansion and formal baroque gardens.

14.8 km S

Beech woods and chalk downland within easy reach of London, laced with old ridge paths and grazing red kites

18.4 km S

Ducal seat with deer park and safari grounds.

18.5 km SW

Vanbrugh-remodelled mansion, now a school, where Catherine of Aragon spent her final captivity; open on selected days.

18.6 km N

Georgian high street curving below Kimbolton Castle, where Catherine of Aragon spent her last unhappy years.

18.6 km N · Cambridgeshire

Handsome Georgian estate village with an elegant high street of independent shops, gateway to Woburn Abbey and its safari park.

19.2 km SW · Bedfordshire

Twin lakes in Milton Keynes with a lakeside park, watersports and a Buddhist Peace Pagoda on the northern shore.

19.6 km SW

London to Birmingham by water — the trunk route of the canal age, with arms reaching Leicester, Aylesbury, Northampton and Paddington.

20.1 km SW · spans 9 counties

A chalk hilltop of beech and ash woodland, crossed by the Icknield Way.

20.4 km S

Guillotine-gated locks and water meadows from Northampton to Peterborough, where the Nene slips out into the Fens.

21.3 km NW · Northamptonshire & Cambridgeshire

Rows of lavender and sunflowers you can walk and cut on a chalk hillside at Ickleford, above Hitchin, at their best in high summer.

22.2 km SE

North-Hertfordshire village of preserved timber-framed houses gathered under a tall medieval church spire, beside the chalk springs that feed the River Cam.

23.6 km SE · Hertfordshire

Victorian mansion and huts at Bletchley where Second World War codebreakers cracked Enigma, now a museum of the work and its machines.

24.2 km SW

Around Bedfordshire in John Bunyan's footsteps — Elstow, Bedford and the chalk rises he recast as the Delectable Mountains.

0.1 km SE · Bedfordshire & Hertfordshire

The Great Ouse walked source to sea — from a pub garden at Syresham to the old quay at King's Lynn, 150 miles across five counties.

0.1 km SE · spans 5 counties

The great slow river of the Fens, navigable from Bedford through Ely's cathedral skyline to Denver Sluice.

0.2 km S · Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire & Norfolk

A country park in Bedfordshire.

1.7 km E

Birthplace of John Bunyan, with timbered thatched cottages, a Tudor Moot Hall on the green and the surviving abbey church.

2.3 km S · Bedfordshire

Surviving nave of a Norman Benedictine nunnery church at Elstow, where John Bunyan was baptised, with a detached bell tower on the green.

2.6 km S

A National Trust place in Bedfordshire.

5.7 km E

The only complete windmill left in Bedfordshire, an eighteenth-century post mill on the ridge above Stevington, restored for the Festival of Britain.

6.5 km NW