Buckden - a Huntingdonshire Village

BUCKDEN PALACE TO BUCKDEN TOWERS 106 Patients and nurses at The Towers hospital in WWI . The formidable matron or commandant may be Miss Cranfield (q.v.) of Park Farm who is known to have been prominent in the Red Cross. Alice Whitmee which also appears inside and outside the house. A curious relic can be seen here: the remains of a system of wires and rockers that connected the gateway to a bell outside the gatekeeper’s bedroom in the adjoining cottage. The north wall of what is now the Knot Garden was originally about half its present height; the brickwork and the fact that it reaches across the former moat show it to have been built in the eighteenth century. There are also initials carved in the brick with a date of 1776. The upper part of the wall, which is capped with engineering brick, is nineteenth-century work. It was probably thought necessary to support the vinehouse that rested against it until it was demolished to make room for the Knot Garden in the 1990s. By then it was in a poor condition, as were the other glasshouses there. The Marshalls used this area as a fruit and vegetable garden; old engravings show that their predecessors had done the same at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The trees in the Little Park show us that the conifers favoured by the Victorians were no doubt planted during the Marshalls’ time, especially the Wellingtonia and the other sequoia, the Californian Redwood. They were introduced from America in the 1840s and 1850s, the Wellingtonia being named in honour of Arthur, Duke of Wellington, who had died in 1852. How could Arthur Wellington Marshall resist such a tree? It has pride of place between the two gatehouses. The Red Cross Hospital By early 1911, Sir Arthur Marshall (as he became in 1898) and his wife had retired to Folkestone. This meant the house was available in 1914 for requisition as a military hospital. Another, smaller hospital was set up in the rectory of the neighbouring village of Brampton, but when the rector needed the house again at the beginning of 1917, the hospital was combined with its Buckden neighbour. Soldiers repatriated from France were placed under the care of the Red Cross. They would have been a familiar sight in the village, and they were known as the ‘boys in blue’ because of the bright blue jacket and trousers the convalescent soldiers wore. They enjoyed considerable support from local people, and almost every month in the Huntingdonshire Post the commandant would list with thanks the gifts she had received for the men. The Red Cross collecting boxes in the village hotels and public houses yielded generous offerings too. In its years as a hospital The Towers saw nearly 2000 patients pass through the gates, and it was a proud claim that not one of them died. The hospital closed on 23 April 1919. At a ceremony that followed, the speaker wished au revoir to the boys in blue: was that a slip of the tongue or a newspaper reporter’s imagination? The contents of the hospital were put up for auction at the George Hotel in May. Among the many items on offer were sixteen iron bedsteads, a quantity of socks and a small lawnmower. Sir Arthur had died in December 1918. After his will was published in April 1919, The Towers was advertised for auction at The George. It was described as ‘unusually attractive and compact, in a quiet rural situation on the outskirts of an old-world village’. The features included ‘the interesting ruins of the ancient episcopal palace, excellent stabling, glass houses, two cottages, ornamental water, orchard and park land’. Robert Holmes Edleston Dr Robert Holmes Edleston, whose home was at Gainford, County Durham, became the new owner of The Towers in 1919 and Lord of the Manor of Buckden Brittens the following year. In his time, the Manorial Court would often meet in the Inner Gatehouse of The Towers; the Court Rolls, now in the Huntingdonshire Archives, give an account of the proceedings. He would use the title ‘Baron de Montalbo’, awarded him by the Most Serene Republic of San Marino, for which he was consul. Edleston was interested in archaeology and was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries; before long he was busy restoring parts of the old palace. His principal achievement was the rebuilding of the