The Ampthill Mob

Ampthill is a pleasant Bedfordshire town, boasting numerous Georgian houses, and even more houses of an earlier age to which Georgian fronts were attached. The name has Anglo-Saxon roots, and means ‘ant-heap.’ There was a fifteenth century castle here, of which there are only fragmentary remains. This was famous for housing Catherine of Aragon between 1531, when Anne Boleyn became Henry VIII’s favourite, and 1533, when ‘The Great Whore’ was elevated to queen and Catherine was moved to Kimbolton in Cambridgeshire.