Buckden - a Huntingdonshire Village

75 vermin. Acts of Parliament passed in Tudor times allowed churchwardens to pay from the parish rate a bounty for certain animals which were considered to be pests. Buckden churchwardens listed details of the vermin bounty in their account book (1627-1774). Mole-catching required some expertise, and attracted payment at the rate of 9d a dozen; in the twenty-year period 1632-1653, 2,227 moles were accounted for, but for some reason very few were recorded after that. Hedgehogs were believed to steal milk from cows and dozens were turned in for every decade in the book. The rate paid varied from 1d each in the 1630s to 4d each in the 1720s. Polecats are no longer found in Huntingdonshire, but the account book suggests they were common throughout the period. The reward for killing a polecat was 1d at the beginning of the accounts and 4d at the end. Bounty payments for foxes were usually paid to a huntsman, and they and badgers rated a shilling each. Otters appear only twice, in spite of their being worth 3s 4d each in 1731. Only five weasels, at 2d each, were recorded. In the 18thC sparrows became the target of systematic extermination: in 16 years from 1717 well over 8,000 sparrows and eggs were destroyed – the birds fetched 2d a dozen and their eggs 1d a dozen. Animals that were specifically mentioned in the Vermin Acts but absent from the Buckden records included stoats, rats and mice. Rabbits and rooks were not mentioned then, but their killing was encouraged during the Second World War; the war also put sparrows back in the firing-line (eggs 2d a dozen, heads 3d a dozen), together with rats, pigeons and cabbage-white butterflies. It is tempting to draw conclusions about the early modern ecology of Buckden from the bounty figures: in particular the ubiquity of polecats reflects a wooded landscape (see deer park ) while the determined effort to eliminate sparrows may indicate the increasing importance of arable farming. veterinary surgeons were not always people with an educational qualification in animal husbandry – or indeed, with any education at all. Before there was a veterinary profession, it could be used to describe anyone thought by his or her neighbours to have a gift for healing animals. In 19thC Buckden these included: J. Searle (Post Office Directory 1869) Edward Cope, ‘Horse and cattle doctor’ of Sherwood House, High Street (Kelly’s Directory 1890) John Favill aka Shepherd Favill. vicarages . The Old Vicarage [MapRef 12] , as it is now known, stands on the corner of Church Street and Lucks Lane and is now in private hands. The Commonwealth survey in 1648 recorded a building ‘of timber & covered with tile, hall, parlor, kitchen, five chambers, beerhouse, three barns, stables, garden, orchard, barnyard, close abutting street to North’, which was occupied by Edward Powell. Much of this was pulled down, but parts of these earlier buildings may still remain on the vicarage site. The vicarage was re-fronted in 1783 by Jacob Leroux, a well-known (but not universally respected) architect and speculative builder. However, a more thorough rebuilding was undertaken only a dozen years later, probably prompted by the very severe winter of 1794/5 and the arrival of a new vicar, the Rev. Edward Maltby (q.v) in 1794. A fine Georgian double-bayed vicarage was constructed in the summer of 1795. A mortgage for £260 was taken out, signed by Maltby, Bishop George Pretyman (q.v), Archdeacon John Pretyman and John Hodgson (q.v.), the bishop’s clerk, to cover the expenses as follows: Thomas and John Hipwell, Buckden Brickworks in West Field, 1 June-18 August 1795; 36,000 bricks at £1/10s/0d per 1,000, £54 Charles Clark, bricklaying & labourers, tiling, plastering £92 Thomas Mahew, scaffolding & hair £2 John Lindsell, timber £10 William Ayers work £12 Thomas & William Usher, nails, screws, laths £10 William Usher, sand timber poles hair and carriage from Huntdn; clay hard lath, fir lath and carriage of fir timber from St Ives £16 Henry Maule, lime poles, deals, one piece of Riga timber 40feet long £3/6s/8d ditto, polished flag stones, delivered 3 April-6 July 1795 £98 This vicarage was sold in 1980; its replacement, at 16 Church Street, was completed and handed over to the Rev. Stanley Griffiths on 13 August 1981. It was built on former Palace land at a cost of £80,000. See also sewerage and water supply. Barry Jobling Village Hall, Burberry Road. The hall succeeded the Rifle Range (q.v.) and preceded the Millennium Community Centre (q.v.) as the recreational centre of Buckden. See Chapter xx. Vine, The, 33-35 High Street [MapRef 21]. The building housing Buckden’s only remaining traditional pub dates from the 18thC, but there was an inn on this site in the early years of the 17thC. We know this from the record of legal proceedings held between 1650 and 1653, in which Elizabeth Kirby, a London merchant’s wife, sought to regain possession of ‘a freehold messuage and 25 acres called Le Hyne in Buckden’ which had been left to her as a child, after the deaths of her father and mother in 1615. Before she could enjoy her inheritance, however, it had been taken away from her by William Clement. Since then, it had been sold at least four times and by 1650 was in the hands of Thomas Jackson, Gent. The grounds of the dispute were whether the property had been subject to a mortgage, and if so, whether the mortgage had been discharged before the death of Elizabeth’s parents. If it had, Mr Clement and all the subsequent purchasers were entitled to possession; if not, the property should have remained with Elizabeth. “The old vicarage” Barry Jobling