Luton, beyond the airport

For many travellers, Luton is just the name of an airport, the one used by so many low-cost flights to and from London. But beyond the runways there is a real town, with more than 225,000 inhabitants, a curious industrial history and one of the most varied populations in England. In the south of Bedfordshire, at the foot of the Chiltern Hills, about fifty kilometres north of London, Luton was for two centuries the hat-making capital of Britain: straw was plaited and felt shaped here for half the world, and the football club is still called The Hatters. Then came Vauxhall cars and, in the 1930s, the airport. Today Luton is a transport hub, a young and multicultural town and a convenient, cheaper base for visiting London and the surrounding countryside, from Whipsnade Zoo to Woburn Abbey.

From Luton station, Thameslink trains reach London St Pancras in just over half an hour, and an automated shuttle links the railway with Luton Airport in a few minutes.

From medieval market to plaited straw

Luton began as a Saxon village on the River Lea, which rises nearby and flows all the way to the Thames in London. In the Middle Ages it was a market town, with a large church and wheat fields all around. Its fortune began in the 17th century with straw plaiting: in the villages of Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, women and children plaited long strips of wheat straw by hand, which were then sold at Luton market and sewn into hats. Tradition says the craft was taught by artisans from Lorraine, and later Italian plaited straw, especially Tuscan straw from Florence, became the great model to imitate and the rival to beat.

In the 19th century Luton became the centre of straw hat production in England, and later of felt hats too. The town filled with small factories and workshops, and in 1869 a large Plait Hall was built, a covered market for the straw plait trade. In the early 20th century Luton was producing millions of hats a year: boaters, bowlers, ladies' hats and caps. Decline came after the Second World War, when men stopped wearing hats every day.

The Hat District

What remains of the hatters' past is the Hat District, the area north of the station where dozens of red-brick buildings that once housed hat makers' workshops, warehouses and offices still stand, with large windows for working in natural light. Some have been restored and turned into homes, studios and cultural spaces: the best known is The Hat Factory, a former hat works that is now an arts centre with a theatre, concert rooms and workshops. Walking along streets such as Guildford Street and Bute Street you can still read the names of old firms on the façades.

Vauxhall, car town

In 1905 Vauxhall, a small engine company founded in the Vauxhall district of London, moved its car factory to Luton. The brand still keeps its griffin, taken from the coat of arms of Falkes de Breauté, the medieval knight who gave his name to the London district. Bought in 1925 by the American General Motors, Vauxhall became the town's largest employer, with tens of thousands of workers, many of whom came from Ireland, Scotland, the Caribbean and Pakistan. During the Second World War the factory built Churchill tanks, and for that reason it was bombed by the Luftwaffe.

Car production ended in 2002 and van production in 2025, when the Stellantis group closed the plant. For Luton it was the end of an era, but the factory's story lives on in family memories and in the town's multicultural make-up.

Luton Airport

The airport opened in 1938 and in the 1960s and 1970s became a hub for charter flights and package holidays to the Mediterranean. It was then that Luton's name entered popular culture thanks to a famous television advert for an Italian aperitif: an elegant suitor asked a young woman whether she had been wafted down from paradise, and she replied, in a strong London accent, that no, she had come from Luton Airport. The line became a catchphrase, and even inspired a pop song.

Today the airport is the fifth busiest in the UK and one of Europe's main low-cost airports, home of easyJet and a base for Wizz Air and Ryanair. Since 2023 the automated Luton DART shuttle has linked Luton Airport Parkway station with the terminal in a few minutes. For information on getting to central London see our guide to London's airports and the dedicated site aeroportodiluton.info, with timetables, transport and parking.

What to see in Luton

Wardown House Museum

In the green of Wardown Park, the town's finest park, with a lake, sports pitches and flower gardens, stands Wardown House Museum and Gallery, housed in a Victorian Gothic-style mansion. The museum, which is free, tells the story of Luton and above all of its hats, with a rich collection of straw and felt hats and tools, as well as the life of Bedfordshire and its regiments. The restored Victorian rooms show how a well-to-do family lived at the time.

Stockwood Discovery Centre

South of the town, the Stockwood Discovery Centre is a museum surrounded by historic themed gardens, including an Italian garden, a Victorian garden and a medicinal garden. It houses the Mossman Collection, one of Britain's largest collections of carriages and horse-drawn vehicles, from stagecoaches to hearses. The park also has a sculpture garden by the Scottish artist and poet Ian Hamilton Finlay. Entry is free and it is very popular with families.

St Mary's Church

St Mary's Church, in the centre, is one of the largest parish churches in England. Begun in the 12th century and enlarged over the following centuries, it has a chequerboard tower of stone and flint typical of the area, a font beneath a 14th-century stone canopy and fine Gothic chapels. It is the oldest and most important survival of medieval Luton.

Luton Hoo

On the southern edge of the town stands Luton Hoo, a great house designed in the 18th century by Robert Adam and set in parkland laid out by Capability Brown, England's most famous landscape gardener. In 1891 at Luton Hoo Prince Albert Victor, grandson of Queen Victoria, proposed to Princess Mary of Teck: he died a few weeks later, and Mary married his brother, the future George V, becoming queen. Today the house is a luxury hotel with a golf course and spa, but you can see the gardens over lunch or afternoon tea in the restaurant.

The centre and the town hall

Luton's centre grew up around the large Town Hall, rebuilt in the 1930s in Art Deco style with a tall clock tower. The old town hall had been burned in 1919 during a riot on the day of the peace celebrations after the First World War, when many ex-servicemen protested at being left out of the official festivities. Around it are the large Mall shopping centre, markets, theatres and restaurants serving food from around the world, especially in Bury Park, the heart of the Pakistani community.

Luton Carnival

From 1976 Luton hosted one of the largest carnivals in England at the end of May, for years described as the largest one-day carnival in Europe, with floats, costumes, steel bands and music from the Caribbean, South Asia and Africa. The carnival mirrors the town: Luton is home to communities of Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Indian, Caribbean, Irish, Polish, Romanian and African origin, and it is one of the youngest and most diverse towns in the country.

A day in Luton

A possible itinerary for those with a few hours before or after a flight: start at Wardown Park and the hat museum, walk down to the centre to see St Mary's Church and the town hall, and cross the Hat District reading the signs of the old workshops. After lunch in one of the restaurants of Bury Park, spend the afternoon at the Stockwood Discovery Centre and its gardens, or take tea at Luton Hoo. With a full day you can leave town and climb the Dunstable Downs.

Sport

Luton Town, founded in 1885, is one of the oldest clubs in England and one of the most loved by its fans. Its ground, Kenilworth Road, is famous because one of the entrances literally runs between the terraced houses of the street: away fans go in through a narrow passage between two houses, and the stairs lead to the stands above the neighbours' back gardens. In 2023, after a long climb back from the lower leagues, Luton reached the Premier League, becoming one of the most talked-about teams of the season thanks to its small, noisy ground. The comedian Eric Morecambe, a great fan, was a director of the club for years.

Around Luton

• Whipsnade Zoo, about ten kilometres west: the largest zoo in the UK by area, with elephants, rhinos and animals living in large open enclosures on the hills.
• The Dunstable Downs, chalk hills of the Chilterns with views over the plain, kites and gliders, and nearby Whipsnade Tree Cathedral, a "cathedral" made of trees planted in the shape of a church.
• Woburn Abbey and Safari Park, about twenty kilometres away, home of the Dukes of Bedford, with a collection of paintings and a large safari park.
• St Albans, a quarter of an hour by train, with its cathedral and the remains of the Roman town of Verulamium.
• The Warner Bros. Studio Tour of Harry Potter, at Leavesden, about half an hour by car.
• Bletchley Park, where the codes of the Enigma machine were broken, about half an hour away.
• The Shuttleworth Collection at Old Warden, with historic aircraft that fly at summer air displays.
• Someries Castle, the ruins of a 15th-century brick fortified house near the airport.

Living in Luton

Luton has a bad reputation it does not always deserve: in 2004 a tongue-in-cheek book about England's worst towns put it in first place, and the town has often made headlines for social problems. It is true that there are poor neighbourhoods and that the centre suffered from the factory closures, but Luton also has cheaper housing than the rest of the London area, excellent connections, a university, the University of Bedfordshire, and a young and lively population. Many residents work at the airport, in logistics and in services, or commute to London.

Getting there and getting around

• By air: Luton Airport is a few kilometres from the centre; from Luton Airport Parkway station the DART shuttle reaches the terminal in about four minutes.
• By train: Thameslink trains link Luton with London St Pancras, Farringdon, the City and Brighton; East Midlands Railway trains reach St Pancras in just over twenty minutes and continue to Leicester, Nottingham and Sheffield.
• By car: Luton lies on the M1 motorway.
• In town: the centre and the Hat District are walkable; local buses serve Stockwood, Wardown Park and the suburbs, and the Luton-Dunstable Busway, a dedicated bus route, links the two towns quickly.

For travel around the rest of the country see trains and transport, for the capital our guide to London, and for other cities British cities.

Tips for your visit

• How long: half a day for the centre and museums; a day for Whipsnade or Woburn; Luton is also a good base for trips to St Albans and the Harry Potter studios.
• Where to stay: if you have a dawn flight, sleep near the airport or Luton Airport Parkway station and avoid the night journey from London.
• When to go: May to September for the parks, the hills and the zoo.
• A tip: if you have a few free hours after a flight, instead of rushing straight to London take a walk in Wardown Park and the hat museum: you will discover a Luton that few travellers know.

Luton on the map

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