Stockwood Park is a large urban park in Luton, Bedfordshire, in the Farley Hill estate. With period formal gardens, leading crafts museums, Stockwood Park Rugby Club and extensive golfing facilities, it is about 100 hectares in area.

Museum

Stockwood Discovery Centre housed in the 18th century stables of the former Stockwood House has displays of rural crafts and trades which give visitors a flavour of life in Bedfordshire before the Industrial Revolution.

The collection of rural crafts and trades on display at Stockwood Discovery Centre was amassed by T. W. Bagshawe and is one of the finest regionally based collections in the country

The park was originally the estate and grounds to Stockwood House, which was demolished in 1964.^[2]

When Stockwood house was built in 1740 by John Crawley, the grounds were laid out in a fashion befitting one of Bedfordshire’s leading landowners. The enclosed walled gardens provided shelter for growing fruit and vegetables for the house. One of the walled gardens now displays a series of gardens illustrating the changing styles of gardening through the ages.

Soon after the outbreak of World War II, the house was converted to a hospital catering for children suffering with hip diseases. The patients were transferred by converted single deck buses from the Bartholomews Hospital at Swanley in Kent. It was considered to be too dangerous in that area because it was on the edge of the balloon barrage. However Luton saw enemy activity due to the nearby motor works. Initially there was not any X-ray facility there, but one was added later and housed in the stable block. Before that installation, patients were taken by private car to nearby Luton and Dunstable hospital. The house was then named Alexandra Hospital for Children with Hip Disease.^[3]

The park is sometimes used by Irish Travellers as a halting site.