Redbournestoke Hundred

The Redbournestoke Hundred or Redbornestoke Hundred is one of the hundreds of Bedfordshire, in the middle of the county, stretching south of Bedford. The ancient parishes of Bedford south of the Ouse, namely St John and St Mary, are geographically situate in the hundred, giving it a total population of 82,229 in 2011.

The hundred contains the ancient parishes of:

• Ampthill
• Cranfield
• Elstow
• Flitwick
• Houghton Conquest
• Kempston
• Lidlington
• Marston Moretaine
• Maulden
• Millbrook
• Ridgmont
• Steppingley
• Wilshamstead
• Wootton

This hundred contained the above-named parishes even at the time of the Domesday Survey of 1086, though Ridgmont was included in Segenhoe, now its dependent hamlet. Its area for assessment was then 114¼ hides, exclusive of 5 hides in Broom, now in Wixamtree Hundred.

With one brief interruption Redbournestoke has been a royal hundred, not enfeoffed to a private lord, but managed by a bailiff appointed by the Crown.

In 1613 the office of bailiff and the perquisites of the hundred courts were granted to Edward Lord Bruce for three lives. In an assessment forship-money in 1638 the hundred paid £21 19s. 5d., ninety-two persons contributing. In 1651 a survey was made of Redbornestoke as part of the possessions of 'Charles Stuart, late King of England'. It was then worth £13 6s, which was derived partly from 'certanty money' paid by the freeholders of the various townships, and partly from the profits (£3) of' waifs, strays, deodands, fugitives, condemned persons, hawking, hunting, fishing and fowling.'

References

• 'The hundred of Redbornestoke: Introduction' - A History of the County of Bedford: Volume 3 (1912), pp. 267