Buckden - a Huntingdonshire Village

7 burial in Hemingford was overseen by the Rev. James Linton, a relative of the Stirtloe Lintons. Perhaps, too, some Buckden inhabitants were among the small, subdued crowd that gathered before the scaffold: Saturday was a market day, drawing in people from the surrounding villages. Bishop’s death left several children fatherless. Bishops Way derives its name from Buckden’s episcopal associations – not from the unfortunate John Bishop of the previous entry. At first sight it appears to form a crescent, connected at both ends to Greenway; in fact it comprises two short roads that are prevented from meeting by a privately-owned grassed area. Bixissitt, John died on 3 March 1736 and is buried in St Mary's churchyard. He is included here because of his most unusual surname. No search engine has ever heard of it. Black Horse, Hunts End (MapRef 36) is one of several of Buckden’s licensed premises that are now private houses. It stands to the south-west of the Green, recognisable by its exposed timbers and cement rendering. At one time it was one of the village properties on which an annual dole, or customary payment, of five shillings was levied for the relief of the poor of the parish. Among those who kept it were John Adams (about 1840), Charles Storey (1847) and, in 1861, shepherd’s son Joseph Kiteley – or more probably his wife, Mary. It was also occupied by a butcher at one time. black sheep, absence of in Buckden: see Pusey blankets to help the poor through the winter were distributed from Stirtloe House each October (and presumably taken back in the following spring to be washed and stored ready for the next winter). It is not known for how long this continued; it was certainly done in the early 1920s. Bonomi, Colonel Joseph Ignatius, CBE (1857- 1930) was a career soldier, the son of an architect, and the grandson of the apocalyptic artist John Martin. He lived in Buckden for a time in the early 1900s (he had left by 1914) and was an enthusiastic participant in the Buckden Reading Rooms’ entertainments, both as performer and stage manager. Boswell, James (1740-1795) was a lawyer, diarist and biographer, and never one to miss the chance of chatting up the ladies. He sometimes passed through Buckden when travelling between his native Scotland and London. But we know of only two occasions when he actually stopped in the village. One was when he and three companions travelling north in a private coach arrived in Buckden on the night of Friday, 21 December 1787 and took ‘tea and white-wine whey’ at one of the inns. White- wine whey appears in cookery books of the time under the heading ‘Recipes for the Sick’. Sick they probably were, having bounced up thirty miles of bad road from Stevenage with beefsteaks, chicken, malt liquor and a bottle of port apiece swilling around their stomachs. The other occasion was in November 1778, when Boswell changed conveyances at Buckden. If the change took more than half-an-hour, some of his descendants may still live here . Bourne, Gilbert was the last Catholic Bishop of Bath and Wells. He was deposed by Elizabeth I in 1560 and in 1561 was removed to Buckden, into the keeping of Nicholas Bullingham, the (Protestant) Bishop of Lincoln. By June 1562 he was back in London (in the Tower), only to be returned to Buckden in 1563 to avoid the plague. By late 1565, Bullingham had tired of acting as gaoler and succeeded in having Bourne transferred to the custody of the Archdeacon of Exeter. Bowling, Mrs Sarah (1832-1907) was a fixture in Buckden for over 30 years as a music teacher and proprietress of a small day and boarding school. She was born Sarah Rowell Banks in Spalding, Lincolnshire. In 1858 she married William Bartholomew Bowling, the son of Silver Street farmer Bartholomew Bowling. They had four children, the eldest born in Buckden, the remainder in Colmworth. The family then moved back to Buckden, but after 1871 Sarah and William were no longer living together - nor would ever do so again. William was on his own at 16 Church Street, calling himself a retired farmer (aged 39). Sarah and the children were at 7 Lucks Lane; she gave her occupation as ‘instructress’. Thereafter the course of her life is spelt out in trade directories, the census and advertisements; William’s is glimpsed only fitfully in the census and a brief, brutal newspaper report of his death. By 1881, Sarah was the proprietress of a school near the Spread Eagle, her daughter Beatrice acting as her assistant. They had four boarding pupils: two sisters and their brother from Lincolnshire, and a girl from Brampton. Ten years later, Sarah was running a boarding and day school from a cottage beside Ivelbury . She was on her own (and had knocked 10 years off her age), but the absence of boarders may simply reflect that the census took place in the school holidays. The same 1891 census reveals that her husband, now a maltster, was lodging in a beer-house in Yorkshire; he died the following year, run over by a train. According to the 1901 census, the now-widowed Sarah was still a private school proprietor, living in what is today 61-63 High Street. She had one boarder, a nine year old girl. Sarah also advertised herself in the 1901 Eastern Counties of England Trades Directory as a music teacher ‘happy to receive a limited number of pupils for the pianoforte. Terms very moderate’. And then, in July 1905, the St. Neots Advertiser announced that she was ‘giving up Housekeeping’; the contents of her home were put up for auction. As well as the usual household effects, there were quantities of books, a ‘capital’ cottage pianoforte, six deal forms, school desks and slates, iron bedsteads and an iron doorplate: ‘Ladies School’. After the sale, the house was taken over as a bicycle shop (see under Robinson’s Garages ). bowls [MapRef 47]. No-one knows when bowls was first played in Buckden, but the game has a long history. There is a document in the Norris Museum which states that in Buckden in 1647 there was a manor house with ‘a Bowlinge Greene sett about with sycamore trees’. From its description, this ‘manor house’ is clearly the Bishop’s Palace. This was just 59 years after Drake finished his game before chasing the Armada! The modern era began with the inauguration of Buckden Bowls Club on 21 November 1929, when a meeting of interested members was offered shares in the club. The green was in Silver Street, where the house called ‘Bowlings’ now stands, and there was a pavilion of sorts from early on. The green must have already been in use: the first drive was on 3 May 1930, and it is impossible to get a green up to playing standard in a few winter months. Unfortunately, the club soon got into some financial difficulty, and in 1933 had to cut the groundsman’s annual