Buckden - a Huntingdonshire Village

MEDICAL PRACTICE IN BUCKDEN: 1253 TO 1964 184 to fix that wart. His surgery at Oak Lawn was less fondly remembered: ‘There was no waiting room, you sat each side of this passage, it was so narrow your knees practically touched—and it was freezing cold in winter!’ ‘There wasn’t much privacy—you could hear him through the door shouting at patients—for their own good, mind!’ But he was also a kind man – ‘I'd broken my leg in a motorcycle accident and the week Dr Jolly was going to sign me off the club [ie, back to work] was the week I was going to get married. When I mentioned this, he told me I was a b-----y fool not to have told him before—and gave me another week off.’ His practice took in Brampton, and on his retirement he went there to live in the Round House on High Street, which he had previously used as a consulting room. Sadly he had only another four years left in which to enjoy the fly-fishing that was his favourite past-time. Older residents still remember his two lively and mischievous sons. APPENDIX: THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN BACHELOR For most of his years in practice in Buckden, Dr William Hillyer lived and had his surgery in Ellerslie, the six-bedroomed house in Perry Road subsequently renamed Nutfield. He rented the property, but equipped and furnished it himself, and when he left Buckden to work overseas, he instructed local auctioneers, Dilley and Son, to sell the contents of the house and gardens. Their advertisement of 12 November 1898 gives a fascinating glimpse of what an unmarried, well-to-do young medical man found essential to maintain his social status and professional dignity at the turn of the century: DILLEY AND SON have received instructions from W. H. Hillyer. Esq., who is leaving, to sell by auction on Friday, November 18th, 1898, all the Valuable Antique and Modern Household FURNITURE, including a few examples in the Chippendale, Hepplewhite, Sheraton and Queen Anne Periods, and comprising elbow and occasional chairs, card table, side table, sideboard, bedside stands, chests of drawers, and dressing glasses; excellent Walnut Frame Upright Grand Pianoforte (nearly new) [by] Monington & Weston; also excellent varnished cob size cee spring dog cart [by] Strangward, (new last year), spring cart, 2 bicycles, 2 sets harness, riding saddle and bridle, carriage and horse rugs, chaff cutter with 2 knives, root pulper, grindstone and frame, 2 sets leather pony lawn shoes, long boarded manger, 4 chicken pens, 4 heaps of carrots, 4 heaps of roots, galvanized corn bin, part stack of well-got hay, 1898 (about 7 tons); Garden Effects comprising a capital lawn mower, double gear (18in.) Green, “The Sutton” lawn mower (12in.), lawn mower, double gear, Green (22in.) edging lawn mower, 2 iron garden rolls, 8 two-light garden frames, 6 garden hand lights, quantity of iron standards, 2 wheelbarrows, 6 rolls wire netting, garden water barrow on wheels with extra tank, 6 clothes posts and 4 iron sockets; Tennis Requisites, including 3 pair ‘Cavendish’ poles, 8 tennis nets & tennis marker; capital Cedar Canadian Canoe, 17ft. long (maker: Burgoyne, of Kingston), with mast, sail, 4 paddles, back rests, cushions and carpets, timber and galvanized iron roof boat house, and numerous other lots; also 7 capital stocks of Bees, with 8 “Cambs,” “Ivo” and other hives, and other Bee appliances.