March 2023

13 Buckden Roundabout March 2023 Buckden Bridges Ouse Bridge in need of Repair - in 1818! Barry Jobling, the previous Chair of Buckden History Society, has come across an interesting document from 1818. It is hand written on 4 sides foolscap. (For the younger among you that is larger than A4 but smaller than A3.) Between us we have man- aged to transcribe it. Much of the punctuation is odd by our standards, some of the spelling is strange (Buckden is variously spelt Buckden, Bugden and Buggeden) and words seem to have been missed out. A full copy of it can be found on the Roundabout website (editions tab, additional magazine arti- cles), with some notes by Barry in red. In 1818 the Ouse, between Buckden and Offord, was crossed by “ wooden bridges ” somewhere close by the “ Water Mills ” (probably in the vicinity of the Old Flour Mills). The doc- ument suggests there was formerly a ford in the same area. There was a dispute about who was liable to pay for repairs to the bridges. The water mills belonged to the Bishop of Lincoln. He had rent- ed them out since “ time immemorially ” to the “ Proprietors of the Navigation ”, who had always repaired the bridges. The Proprietors of the Navigation charged boats using the river between Huntingdon and Bedford (which would have been a major transport route for all sorts of goods at the time) tolls, which presumably was quite lucrative. They had always paid for the repair of the bridges, but in 1818 refused to do so. They held that the public should pay for the repairs. The opinion of the Solicitor General had been sought and he had decided the public should pay for the repairs and the County Magistrate had ordered the work to be done. This was obviously not a popular decision and someone suggested that the Bishop of Lincoln should be required to pay for the work “ under the first grant ”. A Mr Caley, who I guess was possibly a solicitor, but more probably a barrister, was instructed to research old records to try to discover if the Bishop was liable to repair the bridges. He was given a set of instructions, which are repeated in the document. It was suggested to him that the Mills had originally belonged to Ramsey Abbey but then passed to the Bishop of Lincoln, so perhaps the Abbey records would contain the necessary an- swer. It was also suggested that the “ Protector ” (Oliver Crom- well), “ having a design of depriving the Bishops of their Estates took accurate surveys & that the same are still preserved among the Protectorate records ”. The documents relates: “ Upon perusal of these instructions Mr. Caley could not but feel that the investigation desired was a matter involved in considerable difficulty, except so far as concerned three distinct points to which his attention is called, namely 1 st the original grant of the Water Mills to the See of Lincoln, 2ndly the purchase or Exchange between the See and Ramsey Abbey in which the grant was founded & 3rdly the Oliverian Survey ”. It then goes on to set out Mr Caley ’ s report on his researches and conclusions. He reports that: “ The original Grant of Buck- den to the See of Lincoln is said to have been made in the time of King Henry the First by the Abbot of Ely, in return for leave given to the Abbot to make his Abbacy a Bishopric but Mr Ca- ley is unable to find this Grant recorded anywhere ”. So that line of inquiry was a dead end. He is however convinced that Buckden belonged to the Bishop of Lincoln. “ But that Buckden belonged to the See of Lincoln from time of remote Antiquity is evident from its being con- firmed to that See by Bull of Pope Honorius 2 nd in 1125 and Pope Innocent 2 nd in 1138. A Licence in the Charter Rolls 16 John appears for inclosing words in Buckden and there is a document on the Close Roll Item 3 rd as to the Park of Bugden, both these were granted on behalf of the Bishop of Lincoln. In 14 Edw 1st Oliver Bishop of Lincoln was summoned to answer to the King of a Plea by what warrant he claimed to have view of Frankpledge & Writt in Buggeden etc. The Bishop pleaded that he had enjoyed them and all liberties in the said Manor Time out of Mind except as to Murder, No judgement appears to have been given. ” Oliver was Bishop of Lincoln in 1286. At that time, he would have had virtually absolute control over the village and, partic- ularly, the courts which decided any disputes (civil or criminal) between the villagers or between himself and the villagers. Except, as the document says, in the case of murder. The King required him to justify his claim to this control. It seems no conclusion on the matter was reached (or recorded at least). Mr Caley found a record of a survey of Buckden from the time of Henry 8th. “ In the General Ecclesiastical Survey made by Authority of an Act of Parliament in the 26 th year of Henry 8 th there is a return of the possessions of the See of Lincoln, which return is very short being only as follows, relative to Buckden viz. Buckden with its members ”. There then follows a list of the income from the assets of the village that belonged to the Bishop. In total there were valued at seventy two pounds, nineteen shillings and seven pence. (About £72.95p.) I have not been able to find out how much that would be worth today, but it must have be a fortune then. Mr Caley had no luck with the survey of 1650. “ Lastly as to the Oliverian Survey it may be observed that these Surveys which for the most part are to be found in the Library of the Archbishop of Canterbury relate almost entirely to Spiritual and not Temporal Matters viz, to Rectories, Vicar- ages, Chapels etc. The Surveys of the possessions of the re- spective Episcopal Sees are generally to be found in the hands of the Bishops themselves having been returned thereto from the Archbishop ’ s Library at Lambeth. ” “ The particulars for the Bishop ’ s Lands during the usurpation are preserved in the Chapel of the Rolls but beside the difficul- ty of searching them when the Purchaser ’ s name is unknown, it is not likely that any of them would contain memoranda casting light on the present subject. ” But Mr Caley was assiduous in his researches: “ he had searched the Hundred Roll of the reign of Edw 1st to see if any liability of the Bishops of Lincoln to do the repair of the Bridges there occurs, this record being of a nature highly probable to (Continued on page 15)