February 2025

14 Buckden Roundabout February 2025 Village News W.I. At our January Meeting we had a talk “ Mrs. Cromwell ’ s Cookbook ” by Stuart Orme, Curator at the Cromwell Muse- um in Huntingdon. It was an interesting talk about The Court and Kitchen – food dining and Politics in the 17th Century. of Elizabeth Cromwell, especially her cookbook. The talk was aided by slides. Stuart told us that the Cromwell Museum is 800 years old and contains Cromwell ’ s artefacts. It was a Grammar School in the 17th century and Oliver Cromwell and Sam- uel Pepys went there. Also, Samuel Pepys worked for Oliver Cromwell. Elizabeth was the eldest of 12 children and was born in 1598 and was literate. In 1620 she married Oliver Crom- well. They had 9 children, some living locally as they got older. The Cromwells also lived in Saint Ives, Ely and Lon- don. Oliver and Elizabeth (sometimes known as Joan) had a happy marriage. In December 1653 Oliver died aged 59 years. Elizabeth Cromwell ’ s cookbook was published in 1664 and is quite small and it was leather bound. The title pro- claims it to be “ The Court and Kitchen of Elizabeth, Com- monly Called Joan Cromwell, The first part of the book was political and the rest recipes. ” The appearance of the book belies its significance as one of the strangest cookery books ever published; it claims to contain 102 of the personal recipes collected by Oliver Cromwell ’ s wife Elizabeth, some are sweet and some are savoury but in no particular order. Examples of recipes are Gooseberry cream, stewed beef in beer. Food at that time used in- gredients in season and spices. Food preservation was popular. Stuart gave a very good knowledgeable talk, about the Cromwells and the Museum in Huntingdon, Stuart en- couraged us to visit the Museum which some of us had done. This talk is recommended to other W.Is. Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 4th February at 7:30pm in the Millard Suite and it will be a discussion of the proposed resolutions and a bit of crafting. We warmly welcome new members and visitors so if you would like more information please contact: Emma Spencer 07960 018412 Gill Baker 07905 214336 Buckden School Happy New Year to all the residents of Buckden and the surrounding villages from the staff and pupils of Buckden School. We have returned to school rested and ready for a much calmer Spring term. We are looking forward to all the new challenges this term holds for us and fingers crossed for some warmer weather as we approach Spring. As we head into our new term we would like to welcome some new staff members and students to Buckden Pri- mary and hope they settle in well in our school. Last term was very busy for our lovely PTA especially in the run up to Christmas, they did such a wonderful job fundraising and entertaining our children and we hope they know how much we truly appreciate everything they do for our children and school. We are looking for- ward to what they have planned for the upcoming Spring term. Can we please take this opportunity to again remind par- ents and visitors about the safety of parking around our school. We all need to be aware of traffic and parking regulations and be mindful of the needs of our local resi- dents as well as the safety of our students and staff. Please do not park outside the front of the school as this needs to remain clear at all times. There are extra park- ing spaces available at the village hall and off Burberry road which is just a short walk to the school. The only way to solve this is by working together. We are excited to see what this Spring term holds for our children and school. Following positive patient feedback we will be at Buckden Surgery on Tuesday 4 th February 2025 from 10 am to 12 noon to help any patient use the NHS App and/or complete the on - line triage form. This is also be an opportunity for patients to provide feedback on using the surgeries at both Buckden and Little Paxton. Further details on Face- book and at both surgeries. If you are interested in joining the Group and would like more information, please contact the following email bandlpppg@gmail.com and a member of the Group will get back to you or contact Elizabeth Clark, Chair on 01480 216176.