Manshead

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Manshead was a hundred of Bedfordshire in England. It covered an area in the south-west of the county stretching from Salford to Studham and from Leighton Buzzard to Houghton Regis and Dunstable.^[1]

The hundred was named after a site in Eversholt parish. The area west of the Watling Street is recorded in the Domesday Book as the half-hundred of Stanbridge, and there is also a mention of a hundred called Odecroft which may have covered the area south of the Ouzel Brook. By the early 14th century, these areas had effectively been incorporated into Manshead hundred.^[2]

[edit] Recent use of the name

• When the Manshead Archaeological Society (www.manshead.org.uk) was formed in 1952, the name of the ancient hundred was chosen to embrace the intended area of activity.^[3]

• Manshead School (www.mansheadschool.co.uk) gained the name after much discussion in 1972 when comprehensive schools were introduced in Dunstable.^[4]

• Since 2002, the Manshead electoral ward of South Bedfordshire has covered part of Dunstable near to Manshead School.^[5]

[edit] References

1. ^ Vision of Britain: Manshead Hundred Boundaries.
2. ^ F. R. Thorn, "Hundreds and wapentakes", in A. Williams and G. H. Martin (editors), The Bedfordshire Domesday, Alecto Historical Editions, 1991, ISBN 0-948459-84-0, pages 59, 63 and 64.
3. ^ J. Schneider, "The Manshead Archaeological Society 1951–1991", Bedfordshire Archaeology, 20, page 96, 1992.
4. ^ Northfields School 1936–1986, Dunstable Town Council, page 59.
5. ^ The District of South Bedfordshire (Electoral Changes) Order 2001.