News

Ampthill and District Preservation Society are exhibiting “A Tudor Christmas” in St. Andrews Christmas Tree Festival which is happening on 2nd and 3rd December 2023.

Imagine you have found yourself back in Tudor times. It is December 1526, and the small town of Ampthill is situated on the edge of one of Henry VIII’s favourite hunting lodges. As in years past, the residents are preparing for this special time. However, while some parts of the Tudor celebrations would be recognised today, others would not.

Christmas trees were not a tradition adopted by the Tudors.

A Tudor Christmas saw homes decorated on Christmas Eve with mistletoe, holly, ivy, yew and laurel, such as in the kissing bough shown above, and carols were sung.

Notice the pomegranate hung in pride of place in the centre of the bough in honour of the Queen, Katherine of Aragon. The pomegranate is her favourite heraldic badge.

Christmas was also about rest for the Tudors and was a time when work on the land stopped and women stopped spinning.

Flowers were put on the spinning wheels to stop their use.

As a nod to Henry VIII, we have created our Tudor Rose flowers from recycled books rather than real flowers

The day before Christmas, Tudor families would also have chosen a large log then decorated it with ribbons to be laid on the hearth. It was then kept alight throughout the twelve days of Christmas (25 December to 5 January).

As in Tudor times, the log and greenery used in this display have been gathered with permission from Ampthill Great Park, and we are grateful to Phil for all his help with this.

So come to the Tree Festival this weekend, see our entry amongst over 40 ‘Trees’ (and maybe cast your vote for ours!) Full details and a link, below:

We’re excited to be able to tell you that Ampthill Past Memories is now live with a trailer on Spotify.

Here’s the link to the trailer on Spotify  https://open.spotify.com/show/6yPws8oBOsXf9Udpw4tZXv  Please go listen for yourselves.

We are truly grateful to Terry at Radio LaB 97.1FM at the University of Bedfordshire for all the help and support he is giving us.

Sarah Wright

Sarah has lived in Millbrook since 1999 but has family links with the Ampthill area which go much further back.  Her paternal grandparents were from Millbrook and Ampthill, marrying at the Methodist Church in 1927 and her father was brought up in Flitwick. Furthermore, a great, great aunt used to run the Old Sweet Shop in Woburn Street and her great grandfather on her mother’s side was the one-time publican of the King’s Arms. Family History research has shown that she had relatives living in Dunstable Street as far back as 1757!

Sarah was brought up in the nearby village of Wootton and attended Dame Alice Harpur School in Bedford before completing her degree at Trinity College, Cambridge and a PGCE at New College, Oxford.

She then spent 4 years as a History teacher at Watford Grammar School for Boys, before moving to Bedford Modern School. Here, she was Head of History for 19 years between 2003 and 2022 and since September 2023 she has taken up the new post of Head of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.

She is a regular contributor to Hindsight GCSE History magazine, published by Hodder and since 2014 has been involved in a project to transcribe, research and publish the family papers of Keynes family, especially focussing on those of Geoffrey Keynes and his wife Margaret Darwin.

Sarah is a keen supporter of all the different aims of ADPS and hopes that the society is able to go from strength to strength.

Would you like to be involved in an exciting new project dedicated to bringing the more recent history of Ampthill alive?

To engage with long-standing residents of Ampthill and around, to collect and record memories of Ampthill Past in the form of stories, photos, interviews, videos etc.

The records will be uploaded and stored on our website initially, and access will be made available to the public through membership.

Through a previous project that we were involved with, we have access to recording equipment and have permission to borrow it.

Those wishing to become involved in this project can help in many ways, e.g., recruiting residents for interviews, interviewing residents, researching topics, writing up memories, transcribing recordings, general help, and admin etc.

All volunteers will be asked to sign a confidentiality agreement to ensure privacy is maintained for individuals participating and all records will be centrally maintained.

Get involved now and help to share Ampthill memories for posterity

More details will be available shortly.

An article published in “The Oracle” Autumn 2022