Buckden - a Huntingdonshire Village

60 taken up. However, the pond was indeed filled in, mostly through the efforts of Mr Cranfield of Park Farm. Within two weeks the village band was able to perform where the pond had been. Pusey, Dr Edward Bouverie (1800-1882) was pale, thin, fair-haired, blue-eyed, a crack shot and a leading Anglican cleric, preacher and academic who devoted his life to reaffirming the Catholic inheritance of the Church of England. Widely thought of as ‘austere and gloomy’, he was at least able to look back on a happy fifteen months spent in Buckden as a pupil of the vicar, Dr Maltby. ‘There were,’ he said, rather cryptically, ‘no black sheep in Buckden.’ Q Quarrying: see under mineral extraction R railway mania-1 The ‘railway mania’ of the 1840s manifested itself in the hundreds of companies that sprang up to promote new lines (each of which required parliamentary approval). The coming of the railways struck a devastating blow to those who drew all or part of their livelihood from the flow of traffic along the Great North Road. In places like Buckden, these included innkeepers, their staff (maids, boot boys, cooks, cellarmen, laundresses, ostlers, stablehands) and their suppliers (brewers, graziers, coach-drivers, hirers of flies and chaises, horse-dealers, long-distance carriers, and farmers and smallholders). But some local people were quick to see that there was money to be made from railways. Not surprisingly, the gentry such as the Duberlys of Gaynes Hall, Thornhills of Diddington, Reynoldses of Paxton Hall and the Lintons of Stirtloe (who spread the risk by investing in canals as well), all invested in one of the larger schemes, the London and York Railway. In Buckden itself, Captain John George Green (q.v.) of Coneygarths was a member of the provisional committees of two small railway companies , the Ely and Bedford and the Wisbech and Huntingdon. Also on the Wisbech & Huntingdon committee was the Offord and Buckden miller, Thomas Bowyer, who had previously given evidence to a parliamentary inquiry into the commercial imperatives for expanding the rail network. No more than a five mile stretch of the Ely and Bedford had been built (at the phenomenal cost of £130,000 a mile) before, in 1847, the company was formally amalgamated into the East Anglian Railway Company – which in turn became part of the Great Eastern. The Wisbech & Huntingdon railway (or as it was also known, Huntingdon and Wisbeach) became part of the amalgamated Huntingdon and St Ives and Wisbeach and Sutton company, which was eventually wound up in 1846 – perhaps not surprisingly, given that the leading railway engineer Robert Stephenson was complaining of the chaos and inconvenience being caused by the simultaneous existence of fourteen different railway schemes within half a mile of Wisbech. railway mania-2 A form of melancholia that overcomes researchers who seek to unravel the evolution of individual Victorian railway companies. Randall, [William] Arthur (1926-2003) , who lived in Buckden all his life, is remembered as a raconteur and long-serving member of St Mary’s choir. He joined at the age of nine and celebrated his sixtieth anniversary in April 1996. See also Wyles . Reading Room (or, sometimes, Rooms ) [MapRef 5]. The building in which the village Reading Room was situated is now the shop called The Beauty Room. It is in Church Street opposite Silver Street. The decision to try to open a reading room coincided with the arrival in Buckden of the irresistibly energetic young Dr Hillyer at the beginning of the 1890s (see also cricket in Buckden ). Fund-raising proceeded apace, and the rooms opened in November 1891. They got off to a good start: ‘everything has gone on as merrily as the marriage bell’ said the Hunts Post . There were over eighty patrons, honorary subscribers, and members (who paid 2d. per week). The space – including a library where people could read a daily newspaper, and a recreation room – was well- lighted and commodious, and there was accommodation for the caretakers. From 1891 to at least 1917 these were Frederick and Lydia Allsopp, formerly of Hardwick. In the First World War, their only son, Thomas Charles, enlisted with the Northamptonshire Regiment. He was killed in Belgium on 1 October 1917, aged 29. The institution was run by a committee supported by an Honorary Secretary, the first of whom was, inevitably, Dr Hillyer; his successors were Alexander Copping (q.v.), and George Hall of Low Farm. 1985 Mr W. F. Smith, son of an earlier occupier and provider of the photograph, in front of what had been the reading rooms before his father ran a clothing and general store there. At the time of his visit it was Pipe’s shop.