From the end of the 1920s, the national daily press increasingly carried reports regarding the aeronautical exploits of Woburn’s famous aviatrix, the ‘Flying Duchess’, who, despite having taken up flying in her 60s, nevertheless became a pioneer of many long distance and record breaking flights. She was Mary, (nee Tribe), the wife of Herbrand, the 11th Duke of Bedford, and during his service in India, (as aide-de-camp to the Viceroy), she had first been introduced to her future husband at a vice regal ball. The couple were married at Barrackpore in 1888, and having developed a passion for nursing, on their return to England by 1898 Mary had opened a cottage hospital at Woburn. In fact by taking a course of lectures at London Hospital she would then qualify as a nurse and operations sister, as well as later acquiring the skills of a radiologist and radiographer. Replacing her earlier centre, built to her own design a model hospital, to accommodate 14 patients, was then constructed during 1902-3, and in 1903 having purchased ‘Woodcote’, at Aspley Guise, she there installed her private physician, Dr. Glendining. He would subsequently run the Woburn Hospital, which with the outbreak of World War One then became a military hospital. For a similar purpose, at Woburn Abbey the Duchess converted the Riding School and indoor tennis court, and in tending the casualties she would regularly work 16 hours a day. In 1917 the hospital was designated as a special surgical military hospital, to which the wounded were brought directly from France, and with 2,453 N.C.O.s and men destined to pass through the facility, the Duchess would erect a plaque in the church of Woburn to commemorate the 60 N.C.O.s and men who, between 1914 and 1920, died at the hospital. Also commemorated would be Johannes Zacherias Truter F.R.C.S. of Wellington, South Africa. Until his death on December 15th 1918 he had been the assistant surgeon to the hospital, and also remembered was nurse Constance Annie Dean. As for his wartime contribution, Herbrand had established a training depot for the Bedfordshire Regiment at Ampthill. A lady of determined disposition, during her leisure time the Duchess took a great interest in motoring, and even in those pioneering days would dispense with the service of a chauffeur and attend all her own running repairs, including the changing of tyres. Then in 1926 as her first flight in an aeroplane she was flown from Croydon to Woburn, and having found that due to the variations in atmospheric pressure the experience greatly relieved her tinnitus, her passion for aviation was born. With Captain C.D. Barnard as her usual pilot, for some two years she then flew as a passenger on trips in a hired DeHavilland Moth until, at the age of 62, she began to take flying lessons. Sharing the Captain’s enthusiasm for long distance endurance flights, she subsequently hired a large Fokker monoplane, (named the Princess Xenia), and the two shortly set off on the long flight for India. However, in Persia they were forced down by engine trouble, and with Karachi only being reached after a six weeks delay the Duchess returned by sea. Nevertheless, having now purchased the aircraft, which was renamed The Spider, during the next year another attempt was made, and this time the round journey would be completed in a record breaking time of eight days. Not surprisingly it was due to such exploits that the ‘Flying Duchess’ became one of the best known of female pilots, and at the controls of her Gypsy Moth, G-AAAO, on September 19th 1931 she flew in from her airstrip, in the grounds of Woburn, to open the world’s first All Women’s Flying Meeting, held by the Northants. Aero Club. By 1933 she was an accomplished pilot, and, (despite being aged 71), in order to achieve her 200th hour of flying, (having reached 199 hours and five minutes), on the afternoon of Monday March 22nd 1937 she took off from Woburn, intending to complete a return course over Buntingford and Girton College. The 88 mile trip should have taken no more than an hour, but although the weather had at first been favourable the clouds soon closed in, and a snowstorm later occurred. With dusk falling, at 5p.m. the alarm was then raised, yet despite an extensive search by April 24th all hope was abandoned. On the 2nd a wing strut had been washed up at Yarmouth, and others would be recovered at Gorleston, Lowestoft, and Southwold, but sufficient wreckage was never recovered to determine the cause of the crash. Today the struts are to be seen on display at Woburn Abbey, plus many other reminders of her flying career, and to further perpetuate the memory of the Flying Duchess for the past several years the grounds have accommodated a yearly Tiger Moth ‘fly in’. After her death the Woburn hospital then closed and, being known as Maryland, became a hostel for Cranfield College. In more recent years the premises became an adult education centre, and after its closure was turned into housing