Reference
AU10/93/2
Title
Letter from Geoffrey B.Foster of Clontarf, New South Wales [Australia] to Andrew Underwood:
- he had received AU's two books plus pictures of John Bunyan and Houghton House from Bedfordshire Records Office [see AU10/93/1];
- asking for information on Ampthill Castle, having read about it in Vera Brittain's "In the Steps of John Bunyan" and Jasper Ridley's "Henry VIII"; noting that Katherine Howard was held at Ampthill before her divorce [surely incorrect as she was not divorced but executed, presumably a confusion with Katherine of Aragon];
- interested in the Firs being declared a site of special scientific interest "which I presume to be because of plant regeneration";
- asking whether the Isolation Hospital [presumably at Steppingley] still existed as he spent some time there with suspected scarlet fever;
- amazed at the growth in the town; he knew the station had closed and would miss the trains pulled by Garretts pulling coal trucks and Bobby Vale's bus running to and from the White Hart;
- hoping Jim Botsford was still alive;
- he had gleaned some of Ampthill's history from reading Daniel Defoe's account of his journey around Britain in C18
Date free text
30 Oct 1992
Production date
From: 1920 To: 1992
Level of description
item