Buckden - a Huntingdonshire Village

BUCKDEN PALACE TO BUCKDEN TOWERS 107 north wing of the Inner Gatehouse, intended to house a museum in honour of the French Emperor Napoleon III. The dedication to the Emperor above the entrance intrigues the visitor, who is surprised to learn that not only has the Emperor no connection with Buckden, but also that the building for the museum is a twentieth century construction. Edleston made a good job of blending the new with the old. He would buy material from old buildings, especially the stone door and window frames, which came from stately homes and castles being demolished in Yorkshire and County Durham. The eighteenth-century balustrade which now marks the eastern route of the old palace moat, came from a sale at Streatlam Castle, close to his Gainford home. His other major undertaking was the restoration of the crypt of the palace chapel; this work was completed by the present owners, and is the Saint Claret Chapel of Saint Hugh’s Church. Edleston did not live in The Towers, preferring to stay at the manor house (q.v.) when not at his home in County Durham. He maintained the Marshalls’ garden, and would have fruit and vegetables sent north by rail. The Towers was requisitioned again in the Second World War. Boys from Tollington School in Muswell Hill were evacuated here to avoid the London bombing. 1 They were lodged with local families. After them it was used as a hostel for agricultural workers. The estate passed to Alice Edleston when her brother Robert died in 1952, and the museum project was abandoned. A Roman Catholic, she presented the estate to the Catholic bishop of Northampton, in whose diocese Buckden then lay. Although no longer a bishop’s palace, the property was back in religious hands. Robert Edleston may not have achieved all he hoped to do, but we should be grateful for the work he did to preserve Buckden’s ancient monument. The Claretian Missionaries Bishop Parker of Northampton transferred the property in 1956 to the Claretian Missionaries, a Roman Catholic religious order, which takes its name from its founder, Anthony Mary Claret (1807-18 70). A Spanish missionary of extraordinary compassion and energy, he was canonised in 1950. Inspired by his example, five fellow priests became the first members of the new missionary order he created to help in his work. They were called the Congregation of the Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (‘the Claretians’ is the name more commonly used). The letters CMF on the gates and elsewhere stand for a shorter Latin version of their name. Now the order is several thousand strong in sixty-three countries. True to their calling, the missionaries founded a junior seminary at The Towers for the Christian education of boys soon after their arrival in 1957. The project lasted only a few years and now the work in Buckden is concentrated on running short courses for young people, often as a preparation for confirmation; offering conference facilities for adults, not necessarily Catholic; running a parish for the Bishop of East Anglia, and taking part in overseas missions. By 1956, the fabric of the fifteenth-century buildings was in very poor condition; the Great Tower was already described as ruinous in the 1926 Victoria County History of Huntingdonshire , and the Inner Gatehouse needed urgent work as well. It speaks well for the efforts of the Claretians and their supporters that both tower and gatehouse are now used as working buildings, part of the complex named the Claret Centre. There is always work to do on preserving property of such age, and fundraising continues to carry conservation a stage further. St Hugh’s Church was built in 1959 as the chapel of the Claretians and became the Catholic parish church for the district in the 1960s. The choice of architect was a fortunate one. As you face the west door you are struck by the way the church harmonises with the medieval and Victorian buildings on either side. The horizontal features form a link from one building to the next; the arcaded front of the corridors picks up the same pattern along the inside of the curtain wall that joins the Great Tower to the Inner Gatehouse; the black-brick pattern on the west wall echoes those on the medieval walls: an echo repeated on the wall you see behind the altar as you go into the church. In the north and south walls are windows by the Norfolk stained glass artist Paul Quail, showing St Hugh and St Anthony Claret. His work appears again in the Lady Chapel in two different styles. The south window is a memorial to Queen Katherine of Aragon. Beyond is the St Claret Chapel with more work by Paul Quail and a carved wooden statue of St Claret by Jane Quail. The chapel is both a haven of quiet for private meditation and a less quiet setting for the youth masses that are celebrated here. The chapel is a reminder of the days of the Bishops’ Palace; it was formerly the crypt of the palace chapel, though much rebuilt. 1 For more on the evacuees and their life in Buckden, see Chapter 17.