Buckden - a Huntingdonshire Village

BUCKDEN AND THE RAILWAYS 209 derailed when it struck a large fly-wheel that had fallen from an earlier train carrying agricultural machinery. The engine ploughed into the wooden platform before somersaulting down an embankment. The driver and his fireman, both young men, were thrown out and crushed under the wreckage of one of the coal trucks. Both were dead by the time Dr Woolley reached them, the driver killed instantly, the less fortunate fireman lingering in agony for an hour. Another fatality occurred on 7 September 1869, when a child of nine years, Charles Stuart Champion, was killed by a train; the details are recorded on a memorial in St Mary’s church, where he is buried. In February 1930, a motorcyclist was killed on the level crossing by an express train. He was Billy Stoneham, 24, member of a well-known Buckden family. A happier event occurred in 1902, when Private Robert Swales, a career soldier in the Bedfordshire Regiment, returned home after thirty months’ service in the South African War. He was met at the station by ‘a large assemblage of friends’, the Buckden Brass Band, and a carriage and pair sent by Sir Arthur Marshall of Buckden Towers. His friends unharnessed the horses and accompanied by the band drew him by hand up to the Towers, where he was welcomed by Sir Arthur before being taken on to his home in Perry Road and into the expectant bosoms of his wife Mary [Wagstaff], four children and father-in-law. By this time they’d probably decided he’d missed the train. Offord and Buckden was once widely known as the ‘anglers halt’, because of the many excellent fishing spots visible from the train and within walking distance of the station. It’s nice to think that if Queen Victoria was looking in the right direction as the royal train bore her swiftly homewards through Offord at 4.31 p.m. on 14 October 1854, she would have glimpsed some of her subjects enjoying their own humble version of the pastime that she and dear Albert had so enjoyed during their holiday at Balmoral. 1 Buckden Station The Buckden station on the Brampton Road and the east-west line was opened in 1866, halfway to Brampton. It was called Brampton at the start. One suspects that if Lady Sparrow, the owner of Brampton Park, had not had her say, the line would have run further north and would have been more useful to Brampton than it was, and far less convenient to the residents of Buckden. However, Buckden it became, and it was equipped with a shunting loop, a siding, a signal-box, goods shed and cattle dock, as well as its passenger platform, the usual offices and a stationmaster’s house. Thus a service for both goods and passengers could be offered down to 1959, when the line closed. Although a passenger service was provided, it was not designed for commuters to anywhere. In 1950, the first weekday train to Cambridge left at 9.33 a.m. and arrived in that city at 10.15 a.m., early enough for a gentleman and his lady but not for the wearer of a blue or white collar. The last return trip was at 4.55 p.m. arriving in Buckden at 5.43 p.m. Such timings did suit the vicar, the Reverend Hart (1950-52), who would put his bicycle on the train and go to Cambridge to buy communion wine and bread. This gentleman was a collector of railway timetables, which were reputed to fill at least a dozen feet of shelving in the vicarage. The service of three or four passenger trains a day each way was typical during the line’s life. There was an occasional seaside excursion special which called at the station, and others which passed through. Percy Pepper recalled booking trains for annual excursions by members of the Methodist chapel and their friends. (Percy knew both stations well: at Offord and Buckden he would collect the newspapers off the train from London at 7.00 a.m., and deliver them to the shop and Post Office, which at that time was adjacent to the George Hotel.) The handling of goods was the most important part of the work of the Buckden station staff, especially when, unlike today livestock rearing was a major part of farming. Stan Smith, who took charge at Buckden in 1936 as a special-grade porter, recalled in a radio interview that eight to ten trains came daily. It is believed that half of these were pick-up goods trains, which would deliver or pick up wagons as necessary. Stan would be responsible for handling loads of hay and straw, and three or four loads a week of sheep from Scotland and cattle from, say, Leominster in Herefordshire. An informant recalls driving two bullocks to the station every Monday to catch the train for St Ives market. Another remembers consignments of hares and rabbits being despatched by train to Leicester market. Yet another has spoken of osiers and fruit being sent off. While researching his 2001 book on the service provided at Kimbolton on the same Midland Railway line, John Slack found that a wide range of products was handled. Buckden’s may have been narrower, but is likely to have included items not mentioned by Stan in his radio interview, such as guano, artificial fertilizer, cattle feeds, building materials and horse manure. 2 As regards coal, Messrs Hinsby and F. W. Smith each brought their coal supplies from the Offord station, but that is not to say that it was not also handled at Buckden. Suitable wagons can be seen in photographs in John Slack’s book, and in an 1883 1 Fishing, that is. 2 Back in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, some horse manure had been, as it were, home-grown: the station yard was a favoured meeting place for the local hunt.