A1-The Great North Road
Sir William Beach Thomas, writing in the 1930s, regarded Buckden as a convenient stop on the Great North Road for a weekend out of London:
"Great North Road cuts the little shire of Huntingdon along its longest axis, which is only thirty miles. What hosts of people have hurried through it without any notion of its character or the names and nature of its villages! Nevertheless, these birds of passage exert a definite influence on the social life that they hardly touch. The claim that transportation is civilization, a favourite thesis of Kipling's, is curiously illustrated by the annals, new and old, of several villages. One quaint example may be recorded. Soon after the Great North Road enters the county from the south, it passes through Buckden. Though this historic village never became a town, as was expected at several periods of its history, it was a very well-known place in the coaching days when it was a famous stage in the journey between London and York. When the railways robbed the roads of their eminence, and the Great Northern Railway outpaced the Great North Road, Buckden fell back, and its famous inns lost much of their old prosperity and also something of their sense of rivalry. Happily, the whirligig of time does not cease to revolve. When the motor-car came to restore their busy life to the roads, it was found that Buckden, about sixty miles north of London, was a convenient rest for those who could escape from London after business hours on Friday; and so get a flying start for a longer expedition on Saturday. The two chief inns each kept a man by their entrances to catch the arriving motorists, as was made manifest to the world by the report of a stand-up fight in the street between the two propagandists. These very excellent inns, like many others, are now, we may hope, permanently restored to prosperity. The village itself is large and prosperous, but the long red wall and tower of the old palace of the bishops of Lincoln indicate that once upon a time Buckden was no less prosperous than it is at the present time and certainly much more important. When the motorists leave Buckden on Saturday morning for their extended journey, they see at their first crossroads, on of which leads to Huntingdon, a signpost with the pleasingly condensed legend ‘To the North’."
As Thomas says, Buckden was the site of a palace of the bishops of Lincoln, possibly from the 12th, certainly the 13th century. For a village of less than 3000 people, Buckden has had a rich and illustrious history. At half way between London and Lincoln it was a good site for the Bishop's Palace and it seems that most people who were anyone stayed there. Half a dozen kings are known to have stayed and Katherine of Aragon lived here for a year. For more information the Buckden Village Website is particularly useful and includes this little snippit:
"At the beginning of the 20th Century the Great North Road ran through the village of Buckden. To deter motorists from speeding, the Huntingdonshire Constabulary stationed policemen in the main street to time motorists over a measured stretch of road. Anyone travelling faster than 20 miles per hour was charged with 'driving to the common danger'. In 1906, 168 drivers were convicted of this offence and fined more than £1200 between them. The area became known as the 'Buckden Speed Trap'!" from What's so Special About Huntingdonshire? Bob Burn-Murdoch. pub. Friends of The Norris Museum, St. Ives
The 'two chief inns', the George and the Lion in early 1900s.(photo: Robin Gibson / P Gale)
Several other old photos of the Great North Road through Buckden can be seen at the Bucken Village website Gallery.
According to Bruning The Lion was built about 1490 and served for many years as the guest house to the bishop's palace. In the 16th century, after the dissolution, the old guest house became an inn. At first it was the Lamb and Flag, then just the Lamb. A Lion from the See of Lincoln's coat of arms was then added, becoming the Lion and Lamb, until the 1920s when the Lamb was dropped and it became merely the Lamb. With the growth in Great North Road traffic in the 18th century, the Lion was substantially rebuilt. The old great hall was partitioned, a section of it becoming the inn kitchen, both wings at the rear were extended and a new frontage added. Across the road the George was built, sharing, or competing for, the coaching trade.
Grafham Water, England's third largest man-made lake is a couple of miles to the west of Buckden. There is a visitors centre near West Perry on the south side of the lake. Take the B661 about three miles from the roundabout at the south end of Buckden.
©Biff Vernon 2001