Wilstead

Wilstead has been spelled so many ways over the centuries that the civil parish still answers to Wilshamstead, and nobody seems in a hurry to sort it out. It is five miles down the A6 from Bedford, far enough to tell people you live in a village and close enough that your post still says Bedford. Wixams went up next door with a brand-new everything, so anyone picking Wilstead instead is paying for some history, even if most of that history is an argument about spelling.