Buckden - a Huntingdonshire Village

78 Buckden as batman to a Lovat’s Scouts officer (Buckden Towers was requisitioned as a convalescent home by the Scouts during the First World War). Westfield Farm, Great North Road, was for many years one of Buckden’s dairy holdings, farmed by members of the Mann family. Since the death of Mary Mann in 2004, the land has attracted interest as a possible site for residential, employment and leisure use. The name derives from the fact that the farm is on the site of the West Field, one of four large open areas that prior to the implementation of the 1813 enclosure award were cultivated communally (as described in Chapter 2: The History of Buckden ). whist drives were an always popular evening out and often used for fund-raising. One in March 1908 attracted forty people; although it was a ‘ very pleasant evening’, the general feeling was that ‘these gatherings would be much more enjoyable if a larger percentage of ladies were present’. This was clearly a persistent problem: at a Christmas whist drive held in 1929, two of the prizewinners in the Ladies Competition were men ‘playing as ladies’. White Horse [MapRef 46]. This was a beer-house at the southern end of Silver Street. It was next door to a forge, and census returns suggest that initially selling beer was a sideline for the blacksmith – or, more likely, for his wife. Thus John Jeakins appeared in the 1851 census only as a journeyman smith; by 1861, the previously unnamed property had become the White Horse, and John had added beer-seller to his job description. By 1871 his son, also John, had taken over as blacksmith and publican, and was still there in 1881. In 1890, he died and the beer-house was run by his widow, Jane. There is no reference to the forge; however, later that same year, Jane married a blacksmith sixteen years her junior, Amos Arthur Fowler. Amos was himself the son of a smith who sold beer (at the Plough in Offord Darcy). It comes as no surprise, therefore, to find him once again combining the two roles in the 1901 Buckden census. By 1914, he was still selling beer but was no longer a smith, the forge having been taken over a few years earlier by a blacksmith from St Neots, Albert Edward Seer (known as ‘Doughy’ Seer). Albert later took over the beer licence as well, and his wife, Sarah Ann, ran the house after his death. Albert was born in St Neots in 1863, the son of a tailor from Somerset. White House, Mill Road [MapRef 39]. This Grade II listed 17thC timbered-framed farmhouse was for many years one of the two houses marking the eastern edge of the village (the other was Oak Lawn across the road). Its occupants have included the Hon. Mrs Rosa Duberly, George Page (q.v.) and Archdeacon Knowles (q.v.). White Lion: see the Lion. Williams, Frederick Edgar BACantab MRCSEng LRCPLon (1863-1923) was Buckden’s doctor (the first to own a motor-car) for nearly 25 years – see Chapter 14 . Wills, William (1850-1909) , boot and shoemaker, came to Buckden from Oundle in about 1875. At first he lived and worked in Church Street, between Page’s workshop and Gore’s (later J.J.Milner & Sons’) grocery shop [MapRef 4] . Later he moved to Lucks Lane. For thirty-three of his thirty-four years in Buckden he was the village sexton. windmill, the Buckden [MapRef 16] stood on a slight eminence west of the Great North Road and south of Perry Road. It was a tower mill, now severely truncated and converted into a private house. One of the longest-serving millers was Richard Barton , who appears in the 1841, 1851 and 1861 censuses. For the unhappy, if self-inflicted, fate of his son John, see under fires and fire-fighting equipment . Windmill, 21 High Street [MapRef 20] . This small public house sited at the southern entrance to the village was demolished in January 2010. Wisbe[a]ch & Huntingdon Railway: see railway mania . Wine and Beermakers Society: see under vineyards. witchcraft. There appear to be no records of witches operating in Buckden. This doesn’t necessarily mean none was suspected of doing so: it would be an unusual village in which fear, malice, ignorance and jealousy never gave rise to such rumours. That they never led to official action might reflect the relative sophistication of a village exposed from its earliest days to the influences of the wider world. Nevertheless, Buckden had at least one brush with witchcraft. This was during the infamous ordeal of the ‘Witches of Warboys’, as the victims became known. On 26 December 1592, the elderly Alice Samuel of Warboys was brought to the Palace to be examined before the Bishop of Lincoln (William Wickham) on a charge of bewitching members of the wealthy Throckmorton family (also of Warboys) and causing the death of Lady Cromwell, wife of the Lord of the Manor. Three days later Alice and her daughter, Agnes, were further examined before the bishop and two local justices, Francis Cromwell and Richard Tryce. Alice, who had already been hounded by accusations for several years, finally ‘confessed’ – or, in the words of author Moira Tatem, ‘confirmed all the current witch fantasies that clearly filled the minds of her interrogators’ ( The Witches of Warboys, 1993). Alice and Agnes were immediately committed to Huntingdon gaol; they were tried and hanged in April 1593, as was Alice’s husband John. The ‘evidence’ against Agnes amounted to the fact that the girl had hidden in the coal-hole when the mob stormed the house in search of her mother. See also Hopkins, Matthew. Wolsey Gardens is a small group of affordable housing bordering Lincoln Close and Beaufort Drive. The name refers to the one-time Bishop of Lincoln, Cardinal Wolsey, whose idea of an affordable house was Hampton Court Palace. Women’s Institute. The WI movement arrived in Britain in 1915, having begun in Canada in 1897, when Westfield Farm 2004. The farmhouse and buildings out of use.