1 day in Whipsnade & Dunstable Itinerary

Dunstable is a market town and civil parish located in Bedfordshire, England. It lies on the eastward tail spurs of the Chiltern Hills, 30mi north of London. These geographical features form several steep chalk escarpments most noticeable when approaching Dunstable from the north. Dunstable is the largest settlement in Central Bedfordshire and third largest in Bedfordshire behind Luton and Bedford.EtymologyIn Roman times its name was Durocobrivis. There was a general assumption that the nominative form of the name had been Durocobrivae, so that is what appears on the map of 1944 illustrated below. But current thinking is that the form Durocobrivis, which occurs in the Antonine Itinerary, is a fossilised locative that was used all the time and Ordnance Survey now uses this form.There are several theories concerning its modern name: Legend tells that the lawlessness of the time was personified in a thief called Dun. Wishing to capture Dun, the King stapled his ring to a post daring the robber to steal it. It was, and was subsequently traced to the house of the widow Dun. Her son, the robber, was taken and hanged to the final satisfaction that the new community bore his name.It comes from the Anglo-Saxon for "the boundary post of Duna".Derived from Dunum, or Dun, a hill, and Staple, a marketplace.