Buckden - a Huntingdonshire Village

BUCKDEN PALACE TO BUCKDEN TOWERS 102 CHAPTER 4/ BUCKDEN PALACE TO BUCKDEN TOWERS Ben Nicol And Ieuan Evans There are many villages and small towns on the Great North Road, but few have at their centre such potent reminders of past glories as Buckden does. Two fine hotels face each other across the High Street, just as they did when the village was an important staging post in the great age of coaching. A little way up the road runs the high boundary wall of The Towers, once a palace of the bishops of Lincoln, whose presence brought fame and prosperity to Buckden. NB The letters ‘q.v.’ after a name or place in the following text indicate that more information on the subject can be found in the A to Z Section. Beginnings ot long after the Norman Conquest in 1066, King William started to re-organise the Anglo- Saxon church. The largest diocese in the country was that of Dorchester-on-Thames in Oxfordshire, which stretched from the Midlands to the east coast and from the Thames to the Humber. One of William’s first changes was to transfer the diocesan seat to Lincoln. This was over twice as far from London as Dorchester had been, promising inconvenience for the bishop, whose presence would be frequently required in Westminster: medieval bishops were an important part of government. In addition, pastoral and administrative responsibilities would require him to travel widely. Buckden, in the centre of the diocese and only sixty miles from London on the Great North Road was ripe for development as the most important of the residences that the bishop and his retinue would require during their journeys. 1 Over the subsequent years we gather more details: there were stewponds for farming fish for the table, a warren for rabbits and a vineyard. The estate was divided in two by the Great North Road: the Little Park around the Palace and the Great Park to the west, between the road and Brampton Wood; the Great Park supported 200 head of deer at one time. It is clear Buckden had become not just a convenient stopping-off place, but a favourite residence, rivalling the Bishop’s Palace in Lincoln. For all its importance to them, some bishops failed to maintain the property, while others made singular efforts to preserve it. Three times it passed out of church hands, with mixed results. Nevertheless it has survived nine centuries of varying fortune to become a Scheduled Ancient Monument, and a busy religious training and retreat and conference centre, incorporating the local Roman Catholic parish church. In the Middle Ages The outstanding figure in the history of the diocese in the twelfth century is St Hugh of Lincoln, known also as Hugh of Avalon. He was born near Grenoble in about 1140. He might not have arrived in England at all, if it had not been for the murder of St Thomas of Canterbury in 1170. Full of remorse for his involvement in the crime, King Henry II founded a Carthusian priory at Witham in Somerset as a penance. When the project faltered Hugh was recommended to the king to take over as prior. Known not only for his holiness, Hugh was an able administrator, and before long the priory began to prosper and in time he was chosen to fill the vacant see of Lincoln (1186), where much work awaited his arrival, not least the rebuilding of the cathedral which had collapsed in an earthquake two years earlier. He opposed corruption and injustice and achieved much for his people. With good humour and 1 Lincoln would remain the largest English diocese even after losing territory to the new sees of Ely (1109), Peterborough (1541) and Oxford (1542). N