Buckden - a Huntingdonshire Village

11 Burder, Thomas (fl. late 17thC) Buckden resident who fathered 18 children, all of whom are said not only to have survived into adulthood but also to have married. buses - and before the buses There is no record of what local public passenger transport served Buckden before 1915 apart from the railways. People wanting to visit nearby villages or market towns would have had to make their own way. Depending on their social station, they would have driven or ridden in carriages, traps or farm- carts, or gone on horseback; the great majority would have walked. A few might have been taken as passengers by the ubiquitous carriers, the commercial conveyors of goods, produce and small livestock by cart or van. Among the most notable of these were: HENRY CREAMER , one of Buckden’s leading Methodists and its first recorded carrier ( Robson's Commercial Directory 1839). A cooper and trunkmaker by trade, he brought out his cart on market days (to the Dolphin , Huntingdon, on Saturdays, and to St Neots on Thursdays). Some time after 1851, he moved to Great Paxton (where he had been born) and changed career, working with his son as a clock cleaner and repairer. By 1871, however, he had returned to Buckden and was living in Lucks Lane – with one of the most precise job descriptions to be found in any census: ‘Maker of 30 hour clock lines’ (presumably the chains on which hung the weights). By 1847 he had acquired a rival in: JOHN RISELEY of Mill Street, who added St Ives market to those of Huntingdon and St Neots. He ran the following timetable with returns the same day:- Mondays: Huntingdon & St Ives: Dep. 9 a.m. Thursdays: St Neots: Dep. 9 a.m. Saturdays: Huntingdon: Dep. 9 a.m. However, John died in 1848 and was succeeded by his widow, Mary – already in her sixties – who ran the business through the 1850s, until ill-health forced her to pass it on to their son, also John, who was still at work as a carter in the second decade of the 20thC. M ICHAEL R EDDEN (1823-1910) of Church Street was primarily a butcher by trade, but ran similar services on Thursdays (St Neots) and Saturdays (Huntingdon). Buckden has been served by buses to the local market towns. In 1915 F. J. Hinsby (q.v.) and his brother started a service two days a week from St Neots to Godmanchester via Buckden and Huntingdon. By 1921 this had grown to services on Thursdays (four times) and Saturdays (five times). They also served St Ives once on Mondays and twice on Sundays. The vehicle was an open-top double– decker. In 1922 the National Omnibus & Transport Co. (NO&T), centred on Bedford, joined in and shared services were operated with Hinsby until 1931, although in 1930 the NO&T had become Eastern National. This company name survived until 1952 when Eastern National became part of United Counties. In 1967 on Mondays to Fridays there were fifteen daily services southbound between Huntingdon and St Neots and twelve northbound. It is not reported why there was such a difference! Five of these journeys extended to St Ives and Aylesbury via Roxton and Woburn, with six in the opposite direction. On Sundays there were four each way. For a few years towards the end of the 20thC, the village found itself on a long-distance route that it had not enjoyed since the end of the stagecoach era: a daily commuter service to and from London. This was run by Whippet Coaches of St Ives. During the same period the aptly- named Stagecoach company enabled Buckden residents to travel direct to Peterborough in the north and Gatwick in the south. Stagecoach returned to the area in 2008 to operate the local services to St Neots and Huntingdon. This was in succession to Cavalier Travel, a Norfolk company that had in turn taken over from United Counties’ successor, Huntingdon & District. There are now no buses on Sundays. Byng, John , 5th Viscount Torrington (1743-1813) was a soldier, angler and civil servant who used his annual holidays to tour much of England and Wales, writing a diary as he went. He often passed through Buckden, and was greatly taken by the George, with its ‘good cream’, its amiable landlord (William South) and especially its resident barber (‘a political barber – as barbers should be’). This was in contrast to his experience in most inns, whose disgusting food and slovenly service drove him to heights of inspired vituperation. Although he disapproved of the bishops of Lincoln living so far from their cathedral, he was keen to see inside their Palace. When he finally succeeded in 1790 he was impressed by what was left - but sad that so much had disappeared. Afterwards he walked down to St Neots by way of Diddington church (‘dirty and gloomy’) and Southoe (‘a mean dwindling village’). C Canal, the. There are various theories as to the origin of the stretch of water west of the recreation ground, commonly known as the Lake or the Valley. Was it a clay pit? A series of fish-ponds? Or does it represent an abandoned early 19thC attempt to give Buckden a direct waterway to the Ouse, thus doing away with the need to haul goods up or down the hill between the village and the river wharves? The last of these theories seems implausible. The investment required to construct and maintain such a canal and its locks would appear to have outweighed any conceivable benefits. The rumour of a Buckden canal may have arisen from a meeting in 1924 between Dr Edleston, the eccentric antiquarian owner of The Towers, and a mapping surveyor noting revisions for a new edition of the 1886 OS plan. That plan had The Towers’ lake labelled ‘Fish Pond’, and indeed it is known that it had originated as a series of ponds in which fish were raised for the bishop’s table. From the 17thC onwards, however, it became fashionable to treat such ponds as ornamental rather than merely useful: small ponds were run together and their edges straightened out, turning them into water features—known as garden canals—which it was pleasant to stroll beside, around or, less Extract from 1924 revision of OS plan.