Buckden - a Huntingdonshire Village

58 See also ash, elm and sycamore . police in Buckden. County forces were introduced by the County Police Act of 1839. However, the legislation was permissive not compulsory and Huntingdonshire took little or no notice of it. The government tolerated this until 1856, when a new act made the formation of county forces compulsory. In 1857 Huntingdonshire became the last county of all to enrol its constabulary, which it put under the shared command of the existing Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire, Captain George Davies RN (Rtd). This resulted in Buckden having its first resident professional policeman. His beat – there was no possibility then of ‘her beat’ – took in not only Offord Cluny, Diddington and Southoe but also Perry and on occasions Kimbolton – all to be patrolled on foot! (His superintendent had the benefit of a horse – provided out of his own salary – and a cart – provided by the county.) The daily life of a late 19thC Buckden policeman was governed by routine tasks – looking out for (and if appropriate, moving on) tramps, gypsies, rowdy boys, stolen horses, straying livestock, bicycles without lamps and unlicensed vehicles (horse-drawn, of course), keeping an eye on pubs at closing time and ‘attending divine service’ on Sundays. This would be enlivened from time to time by intervening in street fights (often between women), trying to identify sheepdog poisoners, serving summonses on poachers, travelling to Newmarket with fellow officers to keep the peace at race meetings, searching the Ouse for persons feared drowned, and, during animal disease outbreaks, helping to slaughter and bury dead stock In 1903/4, seven Huntingdonshire police stations, one of them Buckden, were linked by a private wire leased by the constabulary from the National Telephone Company ( see under telephone service ). Among other things, this enabled the Norman Cross police station to ring the Buckden constables to forewarn them of speeding motorists! In 1908, the Buckden police constable was allowed his house rent-free in return for undertaking the extra duty of ‘looking after the telephones’. police trap, the infamous Buckden. From 1901 until at least the mid-1920s, the local police and the implacable magistrates of the St Neots Petty Sessions turned Buckden into the most-feared speed trap (or ‘police trap’ as it was then commonly known) on the Great North Road – and possibly in the country. In July 1914, for example, The Times reminded its readers that ‘On the Great North Road there are ‘straight controls’ between Hatfield and Peterborough, and the neighbourhood of Buckden, which is in the county of Huntingdon, is especially to be avoided by motorists.’! Distinguished solicitors and barristers appeared before the bench to protest (in vain) the innocence of their no less distinguished clients, and to draw attention to the inherent flaws in a system that depended on the miraculous synchronicity of two constables – one hidden in what are now the Windmill Allotments (see under charities ) with a stop-watch – timing the passage of a vehicle between two telegraph poles, one of them three fields away. The magistrates took the view - shared by the higher judiciary - that motoring was a rich man’s pastime and it behoved the rich to set a good example. One of the defence solicitors was Earl Russell (1865- 1931), aristocrat, electrical engineer, accidental bigamist and motoring enthusiast. He was the first owner of the number-plate A1 and became a Labour Cabinet Minister. He was also on the committee of the fledgling Automobile Association. Incensed by what he saw as the unfairness of the Buckden police trap, he persuaded the committee to send the secretary to Buckden to arrange for a large hoarding to be erected outside the village, warning motorists of the dangers ahead. The secretary rented space for the sign from a local cowkeeper, who was probably happy to take a guinea a year off the toffs of the AA while simultaneously thwarting the police and magistrates. The police appeared to have the last laugh, however: they used the hoarding to hide behind before leaping out, stopwatch in hand. They were temporarily routed in 1930 when Earl Russell, by then a junior minister at the Department of Transport, succeeded in getting the speed limit for cars abolished (it was partially reinstated five years later). In the winter of 1912, a correspondent wrote to The Field effectively accusing Alan Chichester, the Chief Constable, of conniving in the running of an unscrupulous speed trap in Buckden, one intended to ‘catch the autumn exodus to [the game moors of] Scotland’. Col Chichester responded with a furious defence of himself and his officers and denied any bias against motorists. In later life, John Wallage (q.v.), Buckden’s resident policeman from 1887 to 1900, admitted that he been posted to Buckden expressly to help reduce the speed of traffic. The writer Dorothy L Sayers (1893-1957), herself a keen motorcyclist and fond of fast cars, was well aware of the irresistible attraction that the ‘long, flat, steel-grey ribbon’ of the Great North Road held for lovers of speed. In her 1926 short story ‘The Fantastic Horror of the Cat in the Bag ’ her detective hero Lord Peter Wimsey admits to ‘furious driving’ up the north road as he pursues two motorcyclists: ‘though I do plead in extenuation that I spared the women and children and hit up the miles in the wide open spaces.’ Nor was it only motorists who sped through Buckden. On Sunday 22 May 1898, two cyclists hurtled through the centre of the village at midday ‘at 30 miles an hour, quite regardless of folk in the road’. This ‘disgraceful racing’ must have particularly irritated the vicar. Some of these folk would have been returning from morning service, which he had dedicated to the memory of the recently deceased statesman, W.E.Gladstone. The eruption of the demon cyclists probably swept his ‘graceful remarks’ and careful choice of solemn music clean out of his congregation’s minds. See also motorcycles. pond. The village pond was part of the manorial pound or pinfold, an enclosure in which stray animals were kept until their owners paid for their release. It was situated on what is now Hunts End green (q.v.). Being close to the schools, the pond was regarded as a nuisance by most mothers because of their youngsters ‘trying the quality of their shoes’ in it. It is not known whether the pond was ever used for evangelical baptisms, as it was in some villages, but it was the scene of a Salvation Army band concert –