Old Warden
[From Samuel Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of England 1831.]
WARDEN (OLD), a parish in the hundred of WIXAMTREE, county of BEDFORD, 3£ miles (W. by S.) from Biggleswade, containing 670 inhabitants. The living is a discharged vicarage, united with that of Southill, in the archdeaconry of Bedford, and diocese of Lincoln, endowed with £200 private benefaction, and £200 royal bounty. The church is dedicated to St. Leonard: in the cemetery is the mausoleum of Lord Ongley. A market and fair, granted in 1218, were formerly held, but both have been long disused. An abbey for Cistercian monks from Rivaulx was founded here, in 1135, by Walter L'Espec : it was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and at the dissolution had a revenue of £442.11.11.