Battlesden is a hamlet and civil parish in the Central Bedfordshire district of Bedfordshire, England. It is just north of the A5, between Dunstable and Milton Keynes. According to the 2001 census, it had a population of 38. Because of its low electorate, it has a parish meeting rather than a parish council. It is in the civil parish of Milton Bryan. Battlesden House was a large manor house situated in parkland, Battlesden Park, close to the hamlet. Former residents of the village include Henry Skynner & John Dunnyng, both husbandman, defending a case of trespass in Badelesden, in 1422. John Smyth, the complainant, had land in Badelesden, and stated that 100 shillings worth of damage was done to his land. Battlesden Church The church at Battlesden is believed to be haunted by a lay friar. The history of the county of Bedford mentions the church. The church of ST. PETER AND ALL SAINTS is a small aisleless building set on the south slope of a hill, its earliest part dating apparently from the last quarter of the 13th century. There is a two-light window of this date in the south wall of the nave near the west end, and opposite to it in the north wall a single lancet, their late date being shown by the existence of original glass grooves. The nave is 41 ft. by 21 ft., and in its south-west corner a tower has been built in the 15th century, evidently on insufficient foundations, as it has gone over south-westwards, and is much buttressed and patched in consequence. The chancel is probably of early 14th-century date, though nothing but the chancel arch now remains to show detail of that time; its east window is modern, and its two south windows much restored 16th-century two-light openings. Between them is a plain doorway, and there is a square recess with no sign of a drain below the south-east window. On either side of the east window are 15th-century image brackets carried by angels, whose very modern heads do not agree well with their mediaeval bodies, and in the north wall is a square plastered recess. The chancel arch has good moulded capitals and stops to its chamfered arch, but of the moulded base only a small piece remains. The nave had a rood-stair at the south-east, of which only the lower doorway remains, and next to it a