Homes to Rent and Buy in Elstow

Elstow is about two miles south of Bedford town centre, and most of it sits just inside the southern bypass, so it feels like a village even though town is a few minutes away.

It has more history than its size would suggest. John Bunyan was born here in 1628. The timber-framed Moot Hall on the green was built in the 1440s and is now a small museum of 17th-century life. The Abbey Church of St Mary and St Helena is what remains of a Benedictine nunnery founded in 1078 by Countess Judith, a niece of William the Conqueror, and closed under Henry VIII in 1539.

The centre of the village, with its green, is a conservation area. Elstow School is the local primary, and the village has revived its May festival.

For renters and buyers it’s a good fit if you want somewhere with character that’s still handy for Bedford and the A421. Wixams, with its newer shops and schools, is just to the south.