Houghton Regis is a market town and civil parish in Bedfordshire, East of England. The parish is located in Central Bedfordshire, which includes the hamlets of Bidwell, Thorn, and Sewell. Houghton Regis, along with its contiguous neighbours of Dunstable and Luton, form the Luton/Dunstable Urban Area, a conurbation with a population over 255,000. Name The name Houghton comes from the Saxon word 'hoe' meaning the spur of a hill, and 'tun' meaning a village. By the 11th century, much of South Bedfordshire had become royal land and Houghton became Houghton Regis or King's Houghton. Prehistory Relics of Paleolithic man, such as flint implements and the bones of contemporary wild animals, suggest prehistoric settlement. At Maiden Bower within Houghton Regis CP, near Sewell, there is an Iron Age hill fort. This is clearly marked on the Ordnance Survey maps. Maiden Bower has some of the ramparts showing through the edge of an old chalk quarry where there are Bronze Age remains of an older fort. According to W.H. Matthews (Mazes and Labyrinths, 1922), a turf maze once existed at "Maiden Bower". The Icknield Way Path passes through the parish on its 110-mile journey from Ivinghoe Beacon in Buckinghamshire to Knettishall Heath in Suffolk. The Icknield Way Trail, a multi-user route for walkers, horse riders and off-road cyclists also passes through the parish. History Houghton Regis is considerably older than Dunstable, and it is mentioned in the Domesday Book when it was called Houstone. At the time of the Domesday Survey a great part of what is now Dunstable was included in Houghton parish. When Henry I founded Dunstable he gave in compensation to the men of Houghton a wood called Buckwood. At that time it paid in tax the large amount of three pounds by weight and twenty shillings of blanch silver (to the King) and one ounce of gold for the Sheriff. Timeline for Houghton Regis. Academy Award Winning American Actor Gary Cooper lived, and went to school, in Houghton Regis. The men of Houghton claimed to be exempt from tolls in Dunstable market. The inhabitants of Houghton Regis were for long employed in straw plaiting. In 1689 they and those of neighbouring villages petitioned against the Bill that made it compulsory to wear woollen hats, pointing out that the straw-plaiters would be ruined and that the farmers also would suffer, as they now obtained good prices for their straw,