Luton, Bedfordshire, England. Geographical and Historical information from 1791.

LUTON:
Geographical and Historical information from the year 1791.

"LUTON is three miles from Dunstable, eight miles from St. Alban's, in the road to Okeham, and thrity-two miles from London. It is noted for the manufacture of straw-hats; and has a corn-market on Monday, and fairs on April 25 and October 18. It is pleasently situated among some hills, but is a small dirty town seated on the river Lea, remarkable for its church and tower steeple, prettily checquered with flint and freestone, and within it a remarkable Gothic font in form an hexagon, open at the sides and terminating in elegant tabernacle-work. Adjoining to the church is a chapel wherein are some good monuments. Here is a large market-house. It is eighteen miles south of Bedford.

Luton-Hoe, in the parish of Luton, 3 miles distant, is the seat of the Earl of Bute, in whose old chapel is a beautiful piece of Gothic wainscot, carved in 1548, and brought hither from Tyttenhanger in 1608; and in the wood is a portico designed for a house to have been built by Lord Wenlock. It is one of the most beautiful pieces in brick of Gothic elegance to be seen any where; and in the park is a tower of flint and Tottenham-stone, of great antiquity. The ground is tame indeed, but it has received every embellishment of art and judgment. The house was built at different periods, by different men, with all the difference that can be in materials and arrangements, but all these have been corrected by Adam, who erected something like an architectural facade on the mass, and formed such a suite of rooms, as in grandeur of dimensions, and in luxury of decoration, are not often to be equalled. The library, inferior only to Blenheim, is the most magnificent receptacle for books which Europe can exhibit in any private possession; 146 feet in length, divided into three rooms, the books abundantly numerous, scarce, rare, and well arranged, &c. The grounds comprize 1400 acres. Here is a fine botanical garden. In short, ease, elegance, and literature, are prevalent throughout the place. The house stands on an elevated situation, at the edge of Bedfordshire Downs.

Silsoe, or Sivilsho, between Luton and Bedford, has fairs on May 12 and Sept. 20. - Pullox-Hill, near Silsoe. About sixty years ago a gold mine was discovered here, which was seized for the king by the society of royal mine-adventurers; but the refiners, finding what gold they extracted from the ore did not always answer the charge of separation, did not go on with it.

Sommeris is two miles north-east of Luton, where is the elegant gate-house of brick, now belonging to the park of Luton-house, and makes one of the beauties of that delightful seat.

The river Lea, which rises near Luton, runs south-east by Wheat-Hampsted in Hertfordshire, then east through Hertford and Ware, and afterwards south, dividing Essex from Hertfordshire, and Essex from Middlesex, it falls into the Thames, a little below Blackwall. By this river there are large quantities of corn and malt brought out of Hertfordshire to London. A canal has lately been made from this river, which runs into the Thames near Limehouse, for the passage of barges."