Luton
Luton is a town and borough in Bedfordshire, England. The borough had a population of 225,262 at the 2021 census.
Luton is on the River Lea, about north-west of London. The town's foundation dates to the sixth century as a Saxon settlement on the river, from which Luton derives its name. Luton is recorded in the Domesday Book as Loitone and Lintone. One of the largest churches in Bedfordshire, St Mary's Church, was built in the 12th century. There are local museums which explore Luton's history in Wardown Park and Stockwood Park.
Luton was once known for hatmaking and became a centre for the British motor industry with the establishment of the Vauxhall Motors factory in 1905. Car production at the Luton plant continued until 2002. Thereafter, the site focused on commercial vehicle manufacturing which in turn came to an end in 2025. The head office of Vauxhall Motors is located in the village of Chalton, on the northern edge of the borough. London Luton Airport opened in 1938 and is now one of Britain's major airports, with three railway stations also in the town. The University of Bedfordshire was created from a merger with the University of Luton; two of its campuses are in Luton. Since 1997, Luton Borough Council has been a unitary authority, performing all local government functions in the borough.
Luton Town Football Club, nicknamed the Hatters, due to the town's connection to hatmaking, has had several spells in the top flight of the English league as well as a Football League Cup triumph in 1988. They play at Kenilworth Road, their home since 1905; planning permission for a new larger stadium was approved in 2019. Luton International Carnival, the largest one-day carnival in Europe, is held on the day before the last Monday in May; the Saint Patrick's festival is held on the weekend nearest to Saint Patrick's Day as there is a large Irish community in Luton. The town also has a large Pakistani community which, along with the Irish, were attracted to employment at the Vauxhall car plant. Luton Hoo is an English country house, estate and Grade I listed building originally designed by Scottish architect Robert Adam but later transformed to the designs of Robert Smirke.
History
Luton is believed to have been founded by the Anglo-Saxons sometime in the 6th century. Its name first appears in the 8th century as Lygetun, meaning "town on the River Lea".The Domesday Book records Luton as Loitone and as Lintone. Agriculture dominated the local economy at that time, and the town's population was around 700 to 800.
In 1121 Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester started work on St Mary's Church in the centre of the town. The work was completed by 1137. A motte-and-bailey castle which gives its name to the modern Castle Street was built in 1139 but demolished by 1154.
The hat making industry began in the 17th century and became synonymous with the town.
The town grew: in 1801 the population was 3,095, but by 1850 it was over 10,000 and by 1901 it was almost 39,000.
Newspaper printing arrived in the town in 1854. The first public cemetery was opened in the same year and Luton was made a borough in 1876.
Luton's hat trade reached its peak in the 1930s, but severely declined after the Second World War and was replaced by other industries.
In 1907, Vauxhall Motors opened the largest car plant in the United Kingdom in Luton, during the Second World War, it built Churchill tanks as part of the war effort. Despite heavy camouflage, the factory made Luton a target for the Luftwaffe and the town suffered a number of air raids. 107 died and there was extensive damage to the town.
The original town hall was destroyed in 1919 during Peace Day celebrations at the end of the First World War. Dr. John G. Dony, author of The Flora of Bedfordshire, told his history students in the 1950s that he had broken the last intact window of the old town hall during the 1919 riots. Local people, including many ex-servicemen, were unhappy with unemployment and had been refused the use of a local park to hold celebratory events. They stormed the town hall, setting it alight. A replacement building was completed in 1936.
Luton Borough Corporation had provided the borough with electricity since the early twentieth century from Luton power station, located adjacent to the railway. Upon nationalisation of the electricity industry in 1948 ownership passed to the British Electricity Authority and later to the Central Electricity Generating Board. Electricity connections to the national grid rendered the 23 megawatt coal and latterly oil-fired power station redundant. The station had a single chimney and two reinforced concrete cooling towers. The power station closed in 1968; in its final year of operation it delivered 3,192 MWh of electricity to the borough.
Luton Airport opened in 1938, owned and operated by the council. It is now one of the largest employers in the area.
The pre-war years, were something of an economic boom for Luton, as new industries grew and prospered. New private and council housing was built in the 1920s and 1930s, with Luton starting to incorporate nearby villages Leagrave, Limbury and Stopsley between 1928 and 1933.
Post-war, a number of substantial estates of council housing were built, notably at Farley Hill, Stopsley, Limbury, Marsh Farm and Leagrave. The Marsh Farm area of the town was developed in the mid to late 1960s as a large council housing estate, mostly to house the overspill population from London. However, the estate gained a reputation for high levels of crime, poverty and unemployment, which culminated in a riot on the estate in July 1992 and another more serious riot three years later.
The partial closure of the Vauxhall manufacturing plant in 2002 had negative effects for Luton, leading to increased unemployment and deprivation. In 2024, Stellantis announced plans to close its operation in Luton.
Governance
There is just one tier of local government covering Luton: Luton Borough Council, which has been a unitary authority since 1997, being a district council which also performs the functions of a county council. There are no civil parishes in the borough. The borough remains part of the ceremonial county of Bedfordshire.As of the 2024 general election, Luton is represented in Parliament by Sarah Owen who holds Luton North and Rachel Hopkins who holds Luton South, both for Labour.
Administrative history
Luton was an ancient parish in the Flitt hundred. The parish was the largest in Bedfordshire by area, and was subdivided into five hamlets or townships: Hyde, Leagrave, Limbury, Stopsley, and a Luton township covering the central part of the parish including the town itself. The Luton township was made a local board district in 1850. The local board was the town's first elected local authority; previously it had been administered by the parish vestry.The town was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1876. Later in 1876 the new borough council was granted a coat of arms. The wheatsheaf was used on the crest to represent agriculture and the supply of straw used in the local hatmaking industry. The bee is traditionally the emblem of industry and the hive represents the straw plaiting industry for which Luton was famous. The rose is from the arms of the Napier family, whereas the thistle is a symbol for Scotland. An alternative suggestion is that the rose was a national emblem, and the thistle represents the Marquess of Bute, who formerly owned the Manor of Luton Hoo.
The Local Government Act 1894 directed that parishes could no longer straddle borough boundaries, and so the ancient parish was split into a Luton parish covering the same area as the borough and a Luton Rural parish covering the area outside the borough. Luton Rural was abolished in 1896 and its area divided into the four parishes of Hyde, Leagrave, Limbury and Stopsley. In 1928 the Leagrave and Limbury parishes were both abolished and their areas absorbed into the borough of Luton; Stopsley was similarly absorbed in 1933. Hyde remains a separate parish, now forming part of Central Bedfordshire.
Luton was made a county borough in 1964, making it independent from Bedfordshire County Council. It was redesignated as a non-metropolitan district in 1974, making it once more subordinate to the county council. In 1997 the borough council was made a unitary authority, regaining its independence from the county council.
Geography
The town is situated in a gap at the far east of the Chiltern Hills and is built on the River Lea, which Luton is named after. The town is the most populous settlement in Bedfordshire followed by Bedford. Luton forms a conurbation with the town of Dunstable, which is located to the west on the opposite side of the M1 motorway, and also includes Houghton Regis.Luton is situated north-west of London, north-west of St Albans, west of Stevenage, north-east of Aylesbury, south of Bedford, south-east of Milton Keynes and 39 miles south-west of Cambridge.File:WardownLake.jpg|thumb|right|A pedestrian suspension bridge spans the River Lea in Wardown Park.The source of the River Lea, part of the Thames Valley drainage basin, is in the Leagrave area of the town. The Great Bramingham Wood surrounds this area. It is classified as ancient woodland; records mention the wood at least 400 years ago.
Luton is located in a break in the eastern part of the Chiltern Hills. The Chilterns are a mixture of chalk from the Cretaceous period and deposits laid at the southernmost points of the ice sheet during the last ice age.
Bedfordshire had a reputation for brick making but the industry is now significantly reduced. The brickworks at Stopsley took advantage of the clay deposits in the east of the town.
There are few routes through the hilly area for some miles, this has led to several major roads and a major rail-link being constructed through the town.