Buckden - a Huntingdonshire Village

69 Harry married Violet Kate Page of Buckden (see the following entry). Stannard, Violet Kate (1883-1969) , an accomplished pianist and the youngest daughter of George and Carrie Page of Buckden, became the third wife of Henry John Sylvester Stannard. They married in London in April 1917, at the Hampstead Register Office. On the marriage certificate both gave their address as 35 Parkhill Road, Hampstead. This was the home of H. E. Anstee, a solicitor, who attended the wedding as a witness. The other witness was the daughter of a Methodist minister. The newly-weds returned to Buckden to live at the Page family home, The Gables. Violet’s widowed mother was the head of the household, but she died barely five months after the Stannards’ wedding, and the house passed to Violet. (Her sister, Clarissa, already had a home of her own, having married George Hall of Low Farm in 1903. She seems also to have been bequeathed several Page properties, including Nutfield (see Ellerslie) , Hinsby’s corner shop (see Hinsby family ), two cottages in Church Street, and houses and cottages in Mill Road, all of which she put up for sale in 1920.) The Gables was a large detached house on the High Street facing the junction of the Great North Road and Perry Road. At that time, the junction would have been literally just over the road from the house not, as now, separated from it by a roundabout and four lanes of traffic. A view from the house seems the probable subject of a large watercolour which Henry exhibited at the Royal Academy in May 1918. It is catalogued as, ‘The group of ancient elms at the corner of Perry Rd [Buckden] – in the evening light with rooks, a sheepfold and an old shepherd at the turnip-cutter making the evening meal for his sheep, a hedge lee, in a rough corner field. The trees silhouetted in the sunset’. On at least two occasions, Violet gave paintings as wedding presents to Buckden friends; perhaps these, too, were by her husband. Could they still be in the village? Violet remained in Buckden for the rest of her long life, living in The Gables until 1947, when she moved to Ellerslie, a much smaller house just up the road at 8 High Street. Barry Jobling Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768) , volatile clergyman and writer, was ordained deacon in Buckden in 1736. Stirtloe, a hamlet south of Buckden, has a name whose spelling has often caused problems. Stirtley, Stirtlow, Sturtley and Sturtlow are some of the attempts. Stirtloe House, Stirtloe Lane [MapRef 50]. This impressive late 18thC country house set in its own park and surrounded by country teeming with game was much admired by 18thC and 19thC gentry in search of a rural retreat within reasonable distance of London. See for example Launcelot Brown, Reynolds and Linton . Chapter 7 describes the history of the house. stocking factory, 16 Mill Road [MapRef 42]. The large double-fronted house occupied since 2002 by Buckden Day Nursery was for many years a factory producing not just stockings but all manner of knitted goods. Its first incarnation was as Murray & Co. Ltd, hosiery manufacturers, a firm known to be in existence by 1924. The presence of two colonels and a major (Major Murray) on its board of directors suggests they may have founded it with their war service gratuities or pensions. The major may have been Francis James Stuart Murray, late of the Supply and Transport Corps (India), who was living in The Manor House in 1920, and later moved to Hardwick Dene. In the early 1930s, the premises became the Buckden Hosiery Mill, owned by the Buckden Hosiery Co, Ltd from Leicester and managed initially by a Mr King, and after him by a Mr Brown who lived at Ellington Thorpe in a house called the Crooked Billet. The father of Mrs Cook from Offord came to Buckden to train the operatives in the use of Jacquard looms. Between 20 and 30 people are reported to have worked there. Mrs Betty Bunnage (née Stannion) was a quality inspector. In its heyday the mill’s products included Fair Isle jumpers and men’s pullovers for Austin Reed, Marshall & Snelgrove and Simpsons of Piccadilly. (The company had an office in London’s Regent Street.) Products in the Second World War included webbing. No extra buildings were added and so the tennis court behind the house remained, allowing some employees to take advantage of it (see, for instance, under Gale family ). In 1957, sample products from the Buckden Hosiery Mill were included in one of the eighty ‘treasure chests’ carried across the Atlantic on the maiden voyage of the Mayflower II (built to replicate the voyage of the Pilgrim Fathers in 1620). The contents of these chests were subsequently exhibited in several American towns and cities ‘to represent the highest standards of British manufacture and craftsmanship’. The company was dissolved in May 1972. Subsequent owners or occupiers of the premises included Old Mill Enterprises (Services) Ltd; Bi-Electric Limited; Scanlec Ltd; Stonecare, a specialist building company, and STACS, which until 1998 ran an industrial training and consultancy centre. In early 2000, the building was occupied by Sedgemoor College of Hertfordshire. (Some local residents were unhappy to learn that teenage children from that county with ‘severe learning difficulties’ were to be tutored here.) The college closed in 2002, and later that year the building was taken over by its present occupant, the Day Nursery. Stoneham, Miss Elizabeth Reading [or Redden] (1872-1942) was the eldest daughter of Buckden plumber, decorator, and fire chief William Stoneham and his wife Catherine [Redder]. A good dressmaker, she was employed by the Hon. Mrs Rosa Duberly of Gaynes Hall as a lady’s maid and stayed on to become her ‘faithful friend and companion’ for 55 years. Her funeral service at St Mary’s drew a large congregation, among whom was her The one-time Stocking Factory in 1994