College Ponds

The two fields either side of you are currently growing wheat. This variety of winter wheat, Skyfall, is a milling wheat and will be used for bread making. It is supplied to Heygates Mills to be milled into flour.

This fields will be drilled between the end of September and mid-October, with the wheat crop ready to harvest by July-August.

This land forms part of the Caldecote House Farm conservation area. Working with the local community, the farmland was enhanced with new hedgerows and grassland strips to encourage wildlife. To find out more about the conservation area, take a look at the interpretation board that gives more information about how the fields are being managed to support farmland birds.

To the South you will see a wooded area, known as College Ponds. Historically this land belonged to Northill College. This wasn’t a place of learning, but was instead a group of self-governing priests that would come together to mass for the dead. Although dissolved in 1547 following England’s break with the Church in Rome, there remains substantial architectural influence of the College within Saint Mary’s, Northill. If you are interested in finding out more about Northill College, click here to go to the Bedfordshire Community Archive.

If you look to the North East, you will see the designed landscape of Moggerhanger Park. These fields form the agricultural setting of the house and parkland, styled by Humpry Repton to be a ‘sporting seat’. Moggerhanger Park is open to visit and explore.