Eversholt

Coordinates: 51°59′00″N 0°33′00″W / 51.98333°N 0.55°W / 51.98333; -0.55

Eversholt is a village and civil parish located in Bedfordshire, England. It was mentioned in the Domesday Book and is over 1000 years old. "Eversholt" comes from Anglo-Saxon meaning "wood of the wild boar".

Overview

For many years, most of the land in the village was owned by the Dukes of Bedford, and most of the inhabitants worked on the Bedford estate. The estate still forms an important, although lesser, part of village life.

Most of the land is used for agriculture. There are about a dozen small businesses operating in converted farm buildings. The current population is about 420. The last shop in the village closed in 1994.

The Church of Saint John the Baptist was originally built at the centre of the village in the twelfth century, and is still used regularly. There is a modern village hall (a replacement for the old Reading Room which burned down in 1984), a tennis court, a pond built by the residents themselves, an open-air swimming pool, and a pub, the Green Man. Eversholt Cricket Club plays matches every week in summer. There is a school for children from five to seven years old, with about 80 pupils from the village and surrounding area.