The Knowhere Guide

Best and Worst in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire*

Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire Triumphs and Tragedies

Favourite Building

• Most of the hight street (left hand side - Smiths,Barclays etc)
• The Anchor Tilsworth
• The Multi Story Car park is a good place to piss around at. All Saints Church
• All Saints Church
• Barclays Bank - imposing victorian stone gothic style building on the High Street opposite the medieval stone market cross. 13th Century All Saints Church can be seen from mosts routes enetering town, and provides the focal point of the town centre.
• Market Cross
• ALL OF THEM
• the buckingham arms
• The church is nice if you like churches.....
• barclys bank, its got lots of history
• All saints church, lit up at night, you can see it's steeple for miles, makes Leighton buzzard look like a proper market town.
• All of the high street shops because there're all different
• All Saints, the White House,the cottages behind the Post Office,the Old Fire Station
• All saints church
• All Saints, the White House, Goodwins (a first-rate and very useful bookshop)
• Leighton Buzzard Theatre - a fine example of 70s architecture!
• The White House, its the council offices and the only building in town not covered in bird excrement.
• All Saints church.

Demolish It Now Building

• The endless rows of traffic lights and calming measures introduced recently..
• The 5 Bells Stanbridge, its terrible
• renoirs
• whole town lived there for 15 years a complete dump
• The Whole Town, especially Meadow Way and the undesirables that live there. The Market Cross including those that hang out on it, oh and the Clay Pipe too
• The (heroin) Toilets at the Rec
• Sterling Discount on the corner of Leston road and North Street. This is an ugly former petrol garage festoned in ugly advertising hoardings, which spoils the pleasant street scene within a conservation area. The ugly warehouse type buildings between Leighton Buzzard and Linslade.Lets have some well designed buildings instead
• Market Cross
• The Duke's Head and it's weird spooky inmates.
• The Church, heheheh...
• the old fire station-cum on wot does it do?
• Multi storey, just had a re fit and still shite.
• Shades - evil place
• police station
• the whole tescos complex
• meadow way- all of it
• THE WHITE HOUSE IS A SHITHOLE.IT MAY LOOK NICE BUT IT SMELLS OF CRAP.
• The disused vauxhall garage. Bit of an eyesore.
• ALL THE PUBLIC TOILETS!! Very scary, even in the day, never go in there without a gas mask either
• kilgour court on basset road (you know they place they dump all the prison leavers and smack 'eds) bout time we shipped em off somewhere else,to make our town a better place.
• That ruddy multi-storey car park. I wouldn't dare leave anything in there, let alone my car. And what an eyesore!
• multi story carpark
• Safeways (preferably with all the gutless thugs who work there in it)
• All those Linslade pubs which are painted in horrific, garish colours. Multi-storey car park - it is used as a public toilet by local kids. Just flatten the whole town and start again from scratch.
• Market Cross, attracts pigeons and with pigeons comes the mess.
• the flats on oatfield gardens at the front of meadow way, possibly along with some of there more unfavourable residents, and the public toilets all over town as they seem to be test beds for saddams latest biological weapons.
• The old gas showrooms at the bottom of hte high street, now a charity shop.DISGUSTING
• Shades...Its F***ing shit. Better yet, fill it with the local teenagers that think its cool first.........
• Start from the south and work northwards. Do not stop until it lays flat.

The Best Things

• The Bypass!! (and this from someone whos lived here 35 years....)
• The Anchor Tilsworth
• nice people
• The Market when its not raining, the surrounding villages and the people who try to make life better, despite those around them that insist on making it more difficult. Three Locks golf course.
• We have 5* toiets!
• The town has a very low crime rate below the national average and half that of neighbouring towns such as Dunstable. Good train service to London 35mins, and Milton Keynes 15mins. The multi-story has been refurbished, and the new loos have won national awards two years running. Attractive countryside walks can be accessed fromthe town centre via the canal and river. Excellant festival days held each year -May Day Fair, Carnival, Canal Festival and Living History Day
• LB is famous for sod-all really, which is a huge plus. I lived in London for 15 years so it's a hell of a relief to live in a town where there's NO TOURISTS. Londoners take note, property prices are low, you're half an hour away from Euston, you're never more than 10 minutes walk away from some nice country walks and there's NO TOURISTS. I realise I've made that point before but it's such a good one I felt it was worth the effort.
• Becoming a bit of a chav fest, which is always amusing. Its a great night out, loads of locals who are keen to welcome outsiders... K16 are the best thing
• The people and the kindness.
• GOTHALLICA SHOP!!! shops that sell cigarettes to underage kids like me!!
• the cube room?
• I have just moved to the area and I think it's great. The people are nice, the pubs are quaint (although oddly shaped) and the whole town is a joy to walk around. I live in the town centre and I'm enjoying every minute. The place that I couldn't wait to LEAVE is North Wales. The place is SO good that (as far as I have seen) Goths and Townies get along! I haven't been called "Goth" in a grunting pre-pubescent mumble yet, which is saying something! Sure, I've had a few looks, but one guy even complemented me as he walked past, so something MUST be good about this town.
• The ease of getting a bit of filth in Shades on the weekend. Wrap it up though boys, my mate caught something of one particularly filthy one from meadow way.....
• leaving, i was born and lived there 27 years. best thing ever was leaving theres nothing there to make you stay. expnsive, full of twats and no nitelife worth taking about.
• Shades Shades Shades on a friday night!
• Leaving Leighton Buzzard almost 20 years ago!!!
• home
• A really sleepy old fashioned town, with nice friendly people. It's like you used to remember the world was 20 years ago before the streets were dirty. The canal is heavenly, really relaxing and a great place to spend a sunny sunday afternoon. It even has a steam railway, what more do you wnat.
• leighton buzzard isnt that bad! it has good schools! you CAN go out and not get beaten up (from experience). it cud b a lot worse
• The good atmosphere!
• The Market, The Roebuck pub, the library and theatre, Goodwins bookshop
• THE ASHWELL ARMS
• I have lived in Leighton Buzzard for twenty years and I've never been knifed or glassed. There is a very nice public library, plenty of nice shops with nice people, and plenty of places for walks in the countryside. The High Street is scary? Who writes ome of this drivel?
• Centre of the Known Universe
• Pages Park, a few decent pubs like the Three Locks, some nice estates. The people around the shops in the town centre are mostly helpful and friendly. Lots of useful charity shops (well, if you hunt out-of-print books they're useful)
• Leighton Town Football Club, top quality football in Ryman Division Three, they may not be very good but there hearts in the right place.
• Leaving Leighton
• Good market, nice people....
• The canal for nice walks. Narrow gauge railway (small train service running all around and through parts of town) Trains LEAVE for london every 15 minutes or so Reubens sandwich shop

The Worst Things

• Traffic calming measures Over eager traffic wardens Lack of a "department" store
• 5 Bells in Stanbridge
• the druggies
• The violence, yes glassing, slashings and jumpings have been a way of life my whole life here, which is over 30yrs. Nightlife does suck, wannabe tough blokes,usually 5ft or under, who always fight in groups, people who act like their poo doesn't smell, for crying out loud your're from LB, not Belgravia. Girls who's ambition is to leave school and have a baby at 15, so they can get a flat. Idiots that think Leighton Buzzard is the center of the universe.
• No car parking.
• The police's unwillingness to crack down on the obvious drug dealing places.
• The ugly shell of the burned out Railway Hotel Linslade which has blighted this gateway to the town from the railway station. The litter in the street and canal which is not always cleared up by the district council The unphased forest of traffic lights erected by Beds County Council which is choking the town with congestion.
• Local events stink the council have no idea on life in Leighton Buzzard talk to the people more I think !!!!
• most of the people that live here are chav twats or almost dead.(old buggers)
• The chavs, this really is chav central.
• There's nothing bad about the lb
• The Winter Chill, the possibility of a very short summer.
• The lack of interesting places to hang out!!
• the cube room?
• Getting lost in Linslade is easy to do when you're used to "Coast: Everything is on the Right (south)" kind of building arrangement. But it's always fun to explore.
• Everyone knows everyone, if you're from out of town stay away unless you want a kicking on the weekend.
• Going back to work in Leighton Buzzard for nine years..travelling in a grid locked town center, smelling of car and lorry fumes...But, finally the Germans got their way and shut Boss Trucks down so I managed to escape the drudgery of going back to hatefull Leighton Buzzard and all the self righteous people that live there!!!
• druggies
• Terrible for teenages and clubbers.
• Well, by the look of everyone elses postings, this part should be filled, but Leighton Buzzard is actually very nice place. People are too negative about it, yes, it has problems but what town hasn't?
• Drugs - but its everywhere
• drug users,drug users,oh yes and more drug users
• The lack of trees. The visual litter - the plethora of council signs
• LEAVING THE ASHWELL ARMS
• How is a town supposed to evolve when no matter how bad things get everyone goes around pretending everything is alright. That way nobody ever does anything to combat the growing problems of crime, corruption and general decline. There are now drug-related punch-ups going on, but the police can do nothing as they're too busy arresting motorists for being two miles an hour over the speed limit (and this actually happened recently).
• I've just read the previous comments on the vile hell hole that is Leighton Buzzard, or that's at least what it appears to be in the writers mind. I have to ask myself, is it really that bad? Perhaps you are walking around looking for trouble to whinge about. Let me ask you this, how is the town ever supposed to improve at all when local residents give an impression like this which will inevitably put off people considering moving to the area and therefore damaging the local economy. Have you never heard of looking on the bright side of life?
• The congestion, the money-grabbing leeching self-serving corrupt council with their hatred of free speech and their loathing of small businesses (they are currently using public money to do everything possible to bankrupt them all). The grotty Meadow Way, Churchill Road/Nelson Road, Planets, East Street and Richmond Road estates (don't enter them alone), the complete lack of a proper police force, the dodgy psychiatrists who get away with murder, the drug-dealers and mobs of pre-teen and teenaged louts, the multi-storey car park which is mainly used as a public toilet, the plans to put up parking fees and drive out any small businesses not already crushed by the fatcats. Oh, and don't come to live here if you want peace and quiet or if you suffer from asthma, as the town is on the main flightpath from Luton airport, they're always digging up roads and the place is full of people obsessed with house-prices who spend half their lives doing DIY, so it's basically noise, noise, noise.
• There is only one main road through the town centre and that has been totally gridlocked by the useless town council who put up council tax most Mondays, blow it all on stupid, pointless, doomed projects. The town is filled with abominable kids who run riot, not to mention gangs of yobs who think they are big men but are in fact pathetic cowards. There is a general air of apathy and small-mindedness about the town. All those nice old concrete street lights have been replaced by ugly, faceless, charmless metal ones which just make the place look untidy.
• The High Street on a Saturday night, you will get assaulted guaranteed. If do then take that as a warning and dont go back because lightning does strike twice, i'm speaking from experience! Winter, in winter Leighton Buzard becomes very sinister and it will scare the pants off you if you are walking on your own in the dark.
• All the drug addicts.
• Constant violence, glassings, slashings etc in nearly every pub at the weekends
• No nightlife unless you like getting pissed in a crap pub, nothing for teenagers, the old cronies who moan at you just for being young....
• All the people you went to school with who have never left and who now have 35 children - no family planning clinic...... Nothing to do, nothing to see. Threats of violence when drinking (seriously, the tales of glassings, punch ups and killings are all true)

The Knowhere Guide started out as a list of places to skateboard in the UK. It is a compilation of (unedited) information and views supplied by users like yourself. It is not a conventional tourist guide!

In most cases, the information in each section has been submitted by more than one contributor (the credits at the bottom of the page list some, but not all, of the contributors) and some of it dates back to the 1970s.

We make no claims as to the accuracy of the information in the Guide - our only purpose is to provide a forum for users to share their knowledge and opinions. So please keep a large bag of salt handy and be prepared to read between the lines!

If you disagree with a comment, or information is out of date, please submit an update! The contributors come from all walks of life, and their opinions are bound to be subjective, so if your view isn't represented, please speak up and contribute to the balance of the Guide. See below in the 'Have Your Say' section for how to add your voice.

If we have helped you out or made you laugh you can buy us a pint.

Have Your Say...

You can tell us more about Leighton Buzzard. This is also the method to use if you want to correct some of the information already here. (But please remember you're not mailing the person who actually wrote whatever-it-is.)

You can use the add an event form to tell us about events happening in Leighton Buzzard.

Or, if you'd just like to leave a message for other users of this site, take a look at The Knowhere Board (handy if you're just trying to get in touch with someone).

Credits

Last updated: 2008-07-06