CARDINGTON, a parish in the hundred of WixAMTREE,
county of BEDFORD, 3 miles (E. S. B.) from
Bedford, containing, with the chapelry of East Cotts,
1194 inhabitants. The living is. a discharged vicarage,
in the archdeaconry of Bedford, and diocese of Lincoln,
rated in the king's books at £7.17., endowed with £200
private benefaction, and £200 royal bounty, and in the
patronage of the Master and Fellows of Trinity College,
Cambridge. The church, dedicated to St. Mary, contains
several ancient monuments, also a tablet in
memory of the great philanthropist, John Howard, who
lived some years [at this place, and served the office of
sheriff for the county in 1773; and a splendid modern
monument by Bacon, the last of his works, erected in
1799 to the memory of Samuel Whitbread, Esq., whose
family first settled here in 1650, at a house called the
Barns. There is a place of worship for Wesleyan Methodists,
and at Cotton End is one for Particular Baptists.
The navigable river Ouse runs along the northern
side of the parish.