Linslade

Linslade is an English town, located on the Bedfordshire side of the Bedfordshire-Buckinghamshire border (and roughly a third-way between London and Birmingham). It abuts onto the town of Leighton Buzzard with which it forms the civil parish of Leighton-Linslade. Linslade was transferred from Buckinghamshire in 1965, and was previously a separate urban district in its own right. It remained part of the Diocese of Oxford until 2008 when it joined Leighton Buzzard in the Diocese of St Albans. The original Anglo-Saxon settlement of Linslade, which was prominent during the 13th century, was not located at the modern site, but is to be found further north, and survives today as the hamlet of Old Linslade. The present location superseded the original during the 1840s, after massive growth associated with the construction of the Grand Union Canal and—particularly—the London and Birmingham Railway (now known as the West Coast Main Line). Linslade underwent a second major period of expansion, again associated with the railways, during the 1970s.