Information on Clapham in Bedfordshire

I don't live in Clapham any more but I did spend the first 24 years of my life there and my parents are still there so I will maintain a few pages on the place!

Clapham is a small village just off the A6 a mile or so north of Bedford. It was once on the A6 but at Easter 2003 a new bypass (called the Paula Radcliffe Way) opened that takes traffic from a new roundabout north of Sainsbury's to the edge of Milton Ernest. When I was little all the people seemed to work up at the Royal Aerospace Establishment test base on the edge of the village or the RAE's airbase at Thurleigh. Now the airbase is closed and the test base is all but closed as well. This means that the village has lost its major employer meaning that most people now work elsewhere such as in nearby Bedford.

Clapham Church Horse And Groom Pub
Clapham Church
Horse & Groom Pub

The village also boasts its own school called Ursula Taylor Lower School. If you went there, like I did a number of years ago, I doubt whether or not you'd recognize the old place now. The old building at the back of the old church have now been knocked down and the school is across the footpath in nice new buildings, with a new swimming pool at the back.

Ursula Taylor Lower School Clapham Shops
Ursula Taylor Lower School
Clapham Shops

There have been other new developments in the village that I will add to the site later on. There have been a number of housing estates/developments that have cropped up around the village including one on the old allotments that run between Oakley Road and the Texeco Garage (now closed) on the old A6, a smaller development next to Folly Stores, another one between the 'new' estate (Paddock Close etc) and Mount Pleasent Road. How long before the allotments between Cody Road/Bents Close/Princess Street are built on?

Clapham recently had a new war memorial built to remember the villegers who lost their lives in the wars. This has been placed on the corner of the enterence to the Ford.

More images, including new ones of the war memorial