mind. As the town is approached from London, the sign of “Our Mutual
Friend” appears, nearly opposite a domestic Gothic building of red and
white brick, originally a home for decayed authors, founded by Charles
Dickens and the first Lord Lytton. The decayed authors did not take
kindly to the scheme. Perhaps they did not like being patronised by
authors of better fortunes than their own. The institution was a
failure, and the building is now put to other uses. No doubt the sign of
“Our Mutual Friend” derives from those times when Dickens and Lytton
foregathered here and at Knebworth. At quite the other end of the town
appears the obviously new sign of the “Lord Kitchener,” almost opposite
that of another military hero, the “Marquis of Granby.”
Passing through the little old-world village of Graveley, succeeded by
the beautifully graded rise and fall of Lannock Hill, we come into the
town of Baldock, with its great church prominent in front, and its empty
streets running in puzzling directions. It was at Baldock that Charles
the First, being conducted as a prisoner to London, was offered wine in
one of the sacramental vessels by the vicar, Josias Byrd, and it was on
the road outside the town, near where the old turnpike gate stood, that
the Newcastle wagon, on its way to London, was plundered of £500 in coin
by three mounted highwaymen, on a February morning in 1737.
Our old friend Mr. Samuel Pepys, journeying on August 6th, 1661, from
Brampton, came into Baldock, and stayed the night, at some inn not
specified. He says, “Took horse for London, and with much ado got to
Baldwick. There lay, and had a good supper by myself. The landlady
being a pretty woman, but I durst not take notice of her, her husband
being there.”
Always some spoil-sport in the way!
Baldock, from its stunted extinguisher spire to its fine old brick houses
and nodding plaster cottages, is characteristically Hertfordshire. Among
other things of general interest, it has a row of almshouses, duly
inscribed:—
“Theis Almes Howses are
the gieft of Mr. John Wynne
cittezen of London, Latelye
Deceased, who hath left a
Yeareley stipend to everey
poore of either howses to
the Worldes End. September
Anno Domini 1621.”
The worthy citizen reckoned without the Charity Commissioners, who may
confidently be expected to propound a “scheme” some day long anterior to
the final crash, by which his wishes will be entirely disregarded.
Away to the left of Baldock will be noticed a new town, and the factory
chimneys of it. This is Letchworth, the “Garden City,” developed out of
Letchworth, the little village of old. This “First Garden City,” founded
in 1902, on a nominal capital of £300,000 actual £125,000, by the Garden
City Association, itself founded in June, 1899, with a capital of about
thirty shillings, represents a passionate quest of the ideal life on a 5
per cent. basis of profit. The problem of how to create an earthly
paradise (plus industrial factories) was here to be tackled. The
beginnings of such things are always the most charming; and Letchworth
began ideally. But the factories and the five per cent. always have a
way of overcoming ideals; and we shall see.
[Picture: At the 39th mile]
The stone outside Baldock, marking the thirty-ninth mile is milestone and
upping-block as well.
Midway between Baldock and Biggleswade, at Topler’s Hill, the
Bedfordshire border is crossed. We may perhaps be excused if we pass
Topler’s Hill unwittingly, for the rises called “hills” on the Great
North Road would generally pass unnoticed elsewhere. Biggleswade town
and neighbourhood are interested wholly in cabbages and potatoes and
other highly necessary, but essentially unromantic, vegetables. The
surrounding country is in spring and summer one vast market-garden; at
other times it is generally a lake of equal vastness, for the Ivel and
the Ouse, that run so sluggishly through the flat lands, arise then in
their might and submerge fields and roads for miles around.
As for Biggleswade itself, it is a town with an extraordinarily broad and
empty market-place, a church with a spire of the Hertfordshire type, and
two old coaching inns—the “White Swan” and the “Crown”—facing one another
in an aggressive rivalry at a narrow outlet of the market-place. The
“White Swan” was the inn at which the up “Regent” coach dined. It was
kept at that time by a man named Crouch, “that long, sour old beggar,” in
the words of Tom Hennesy. Here “the process of dining on a really cold
day in winter,” to quote Colonel Birch Reynardson, “was carried on under
no small amount of difficulty. Your hands were frozen, your feet were
frozen, your very mouth felt frozen, and in fact you felt frozen all
over. Sometimes, with all this cold, you were also wet through, your hat
wet through, your coat wet through, the large wrapper that was meant to
keep your neck warm and dry wet through, and, in fact, you were wet
through yourself to your very bones. Only twenty minutes were allowed
for dinner; and by the time you had got your hands warm enough to be able
to untie your neck wrapper, and had got out of your great-coat, which,
being wet, clung tenaciously to you, the time for feeding was half gone.
By the time you had got one quarter of what you could have consumed, had
your mouth been in eating trim and your hands warm enough to handle your
knife and fork, the coachman would put his head in, and say: “Now,
gentlemen, if you please; the coach is ready.” After this summons,
having struggled into your wet greatcoat, bound your miserable wet
wrapper round your miserable cold throat, having paid your two and
sixpence for the dinner that you had the will, but not the time, to eat,
with sixpence for the waiter, you wished the worthy Mr. Crouch good day,
grudged him the half-crown he had pocketed for having dined so miserably,
and again mounted your seat, to be rained and snowed upon, and almost
frozen to death before you reached London.”
[Picture: Biggleswade]
Leaving Biggleswade, the Ivel is crossed and Tingey’s Corner passed.
Tingey’s Corner marks the junction of the old alternative route from
Welwyn, by Hitchin to Lower Codicote, the route adopted by
record-breaking cyclists. The hamlets of Lower Codicote and Beeston
Green open up a view of Sandy, away to the right, with its range of
yellow sand-hills running for some three miles parallel with the road,
and seeming the more impressive by reason of the dead level on which they
look. The canal-like, bare banks of the Ivel are passed again at
Girtford, and the roadside cottages of Tempsford reached; the village and
church lying off to the left, where the Ouse and the Ivel come to their
sluggish confluence, and form a waterway which once afforded marauding
Danes an excellent route from the coast up to Bedford. Even now the
remains of a fortification they constructed to command this strategic
point are visible, and bear the name of the “Dannicke”; that is to say,
the “Danes’ work,” or perhaps the “Danes’ wick,” “wick” meaning
“village.”
An infinitely later work—Tempsford turnpike-gate, to wit—has disappeared
a great deal more effectively than those ancient entrenchments, and the
way is clear and flat, not to say featureless, over the Ouse, past the
outlying houses of Wyboston, and so into Little End, the most southerly
limit of Eaton Socon.
XVIII
PAST Tempsford some of the coaches, notably the Stamford “Regent,” turned
off into the loop road by St. Neots and Huntingdon. In the winter time,
or when the spring rains were falling, they did this at some risk, for
the low-lying land by the river Ouse was often awash. Two old ladies
were on one occasion given a terrible fright, the road being deeply
flooded and the water coming into the coach, so that they had to stand on
the seats. They quite thought they were going to be drowned, and perhaps
they would have been had the “Regent” been driven by one unused to the
road. Had the coachman driven into a ditch—as he might easily have done
with the floods covering all the landmarks—it would have been “all up”
with the “insides” for certain and perhaps for the “outsides” as well.
The most prudent coachmen in winter time kept to the main road, which
lies somewhat higher, and passed through Eaton Socon. Once—to judge by
its name—a place of importance, this is now only a long village of one
straggling street. At some undetermined period the head of a “soke,” or
separate legal jurisdiction, all memories of the dignity implied are
gone, save only the empty title, which Dickens makes fun of by calling
the village in _Nicholas Nickleby_ “Eton Slocomb.” The “White Horse,” a
picturesque roadside inn, may be looked upon with interest by those keen
on identifying Dickens landmarks. In later days it became a favourite
resort of the North Road Cycling Club, and witnessed the beginning and
ending of many a road race in the “eighties” and early “nineties,” when
such things were.
The story of the London to York cycling record is fitly to be told in
this page. It is not so long a tale as that of the famous one from
London to Brighton and back, but it stands for greater efforts and for a
vast amount of pluck and endurance. There have been those
unsportsmanlike souls who, not finding sport an end in itself, have
questioned the use of record making and breaking. But it has had its
use, and even from this point of view has amply justified itself, for the
continually increasing speed required out of cycles for these purposes
has led to the perfecting of them within what is, after all, a
comparatively short time; so that the sporting clubman has, after all,
while strictly occupied within the range of his own ambitions,
contributed to the general good by bringing about the manufacture of a
vehicle which, used by many hundreds of thousands of people who never
raced in their lives, and are probably incapable of a speed of more than
twelve miles an hour, has brought the roads and lanes of the country
within the knowledge of many to whom rural life was something new and
strange.
The first recorded cycle ride to York in which speed was an object was
that of C. Wheaton, September 1872. That pioneer took two days to
perform the journey, making Stamford, a distance of eighty-nine miles,
the end of his first day’s adventure, in 15½ hours, and on the second day
reaching York in a further 26 hours 40 minutes: total, 42 hours 10
minutes. This, with the front-driving low cycle of those days, was an
achievement. Wooden wheels and iron tyres did not conduce to either
speed or ease, and that now historic figure, painfully crawling (as we
should now think his progress) to York is heroic.
Perhaps this tale of hardship was calculated to deter others from trying
their mettle, but at any rate it was not until July 9, 1874, that two
others, Ian Keith-Falconer and J. H. Stanley Thorpe, followed, and they
failed in the effort. After another two years had almost passed, on June
5, 1876, Thorpe made another attempt. Leaving Highgate Archway at 11.10
P.M., he arrived the next day at York at 9.40 P.M. = 22 hours 30 minutes;
chiefly, of course, by favour of that then “improved” form of bicycle,
the tall “ordinary.”
Thirteen years passed before this record was lowered, and the one that
replaced it was not a remarkable performance, considering the further
great improvements in cycles. This ride, in the summer of 1889,
performed on a solid-tyred “safety,” took 21 hours 10 minutes, and was
beaten in the same year by six minutes by H. R. Pope, riding a tricycle;
himself displaced, shortly after, by F. T. Bidlake, also mounted on a
tricycle, who did the 197 miles in 18 hours 28 minutes.
In 1890, and for several years following, records came and went with
increasing rapidity. In 1890 J. M. James put the safety record at 16
hours 52 minutes, and T. A. Edge soon followed, reducing it to 14 hours
33 minutes, James regaining the record again in 1891 by a bare thirteen
minutes. In the following year, S. F. Edge, on a front-driving safety,
made a splendid record of 12 hours 49 minutes, but had the mortification
to see it beaten the next day, June 27, by F. W. Shorland, in 39 minutes
less. In this year there were several rival tricycle records: that of W.
J. A. Butterfield, of 18 hours 9 minutes being lowered by F. T. Bidlake
by nearly three hours, and beaten again, on September 29, Bidlake’s
figures on this occasion being 13 hours 19 minutes. On the same day M.
A. Holbein and F. W. Shorland rode to York on a tandem tricycle in
exactly the same time.
C. C. Fontaine went for the safety record on August 29, 1894, when he put
the figures down to 11 hours 51 minutes. Fontaine lowered his own record
in the following year, on October 18, by 21 minutes 45 seconds, and this
was disposed of by George Hunt on May 7, 1896, when he got well within
the eleven hours, at 10 hours 48 minutes.
This was lowered by F. R. Goodwin on July 19, 1899, his time being 10
hours 16 minutes; the speed on this occasion averaging rather over
nineteen miles an hour. Even this could not have been accomplished
without the aid of the most perfect motor pace-making arrangements.
Goodwin smashed all these previous records on his way to establish the
London to Edinburgh record of 25 hours 26 minutes, in which the average
was somewhat higher; nearly twenty miles an hour.
The next, and latest, safety cycle record to York was made, unpaced, in
1900; when H. Green performed the journey in 10 hours 19 minutes.
The tandem safety London to York records should be mentioned. The first
two were set up on July 24, 1895, and October 2, 1896, respectively: by
G. P. Mills and T. A. Edge; and T. Hobson and H. E. Wilson, the times
being 12 hours 33 minutes, and 11 hours 35 minutes.
These were followed by:—
Hrs. Mins.
1901. A. H. and P. S. Murray (unpaced) 10 59
1905. R. L. I. Knipe and S. Irving 10 52
(unpaced)
1907. F. H. Wingrave and R. A. Wingrave 9 30
(unpaced)
The London to Edinburgh records are:
SAFETY BICYCLE.
Hrs. Mins.
1889. F. W. Shorland 44 49
1891. P. A. Ransom 43 25
1892. R. H. Carlisle 32 55
1894. G. P. Mills 29 28
,, C. C. Fontaine 28 27
1895. W. J. Neason 27 38
1897. J. Hunt 26 47
1899. F. R. Goodwin (motor-paced) 25 26
1903. F. Wright (unpaced) 31 48
1904. E. H. Grimsdell 28 3
,, G. A. Olley 27 10
1905. E. H. Grimsdell 26 10
,, R. Shirley 23 43
A tricycle record, unpaced, made by F. W. Wesley in 1905, at 32 hours 42
minutes yet stands.
Tandem safety records:—
Hrs. Mins.
1894. E. Oxborrow and H. Sansom 27 33
1905. E. Bright and P. H. Miles (unpaced) 27 54
XIX
EATON Socon, its long straggling street and beautiful church-tower, left
behind, the road descends to the “river Kym,” as the guidebooks call the
tiny stream which, bordered by marshes, crosses under the road at a point
known as Cross Hall. The “river Kym” certainly is, or was, important
enough to confer its name upon the neighbouring townlet of Kimbolton, but
the country folk now only know it as Weston Brook. The descent to it has
of late years acquired the name of “Chicken Hill,” given by the North
Roaders, racing cyclists, who must often have run over the fowls kept by
the people of a cottage at the bottom. This is succeeded by Diddington
Bridge, a picturesque, white-painted timber structure spanning the little
Diddington Brook, which has eaten its way deeply into the earth, and is
romantically shaded by tall trees and bordered by the undergrowth that
fills the pretty hollow.
The slight rise from this spot is succeeded by an easy descent into
narrow-streeted Buckden, one of those old “thoroughfare” coaching
villages which imagined themselves on the way to becoming towns in the
fine, free-handed old days. The huge bulk of the “George” is eloquent of
this, with its fifteen windows in a row, and the signs still noticeable
in the brickwork, showing where the house was doubled in size at the
period of its greatest prosperity. Nowadays the “George” is all too
large for its trade, and a portion of it is converted into shops. As for
the interminable rooms and passages above, they echo hollow to the
infrequent footfall, where they were once informed with a cheerful bustle
and continuous arrival and departure. There was a period, a few years
ago, when the North Road Club’s road-racing events brought crowds of
cyclists and busy times once more to the “George,” but they are
irretrievably gone.
To and from Buckden and Welwyn in coaching times drove every day the
notable Cartwright, of the York “Express”; a day’s work of about seventy
miles. Cartwright was something more than a coachman, being himself
landlord of the “George” at Buckden, and horsing one or two of the stages
over which he drove. “Peter Pry,” one of the old _Sporting Magazine’s_
coaching critics, waxes eloquent over him. It was a vile day when, to
sample Cartwright’s quality, he set out by the York “Express” from London
for Grantham; but neither the weather nor the scenery, nor anything in
Heaven or Earth drew his attention from Cartwright. He starts at once
with being struck at Welwyn with Cartwright’s graceful and easy way of
mounting the box, and then proceeds to make a kind of admiring inventory
of his person. Thus, he might have been considered to be under fifty
years of age, bony, without fat; healthy looking, evidently the effect of
abstemiousness; not too tall, but just the size to sit gracefully and
powerfully. His right hand and whip were beautifully in unison; he kept
his horses like clock-work, and to see the refinement with which he
managed the whip was well worth riding many hours on a wet day. But the
occasions on which he used the whip were rare, although the tits were
only fair, and not by any means first-rate. No dandy, but equipped most
respectably and modestly, and with good taste, he was the idol of the
road, both with old and young; while his manners on the box were
respectful, communicative without impertinence, and untarnished with
slang. Acquainted with everybody and every occupation within his sphere,
he was an entertaining companion even to an ordinary traveller; but he
enchanted the amateur of coaching with his perfect professional
knowledge, which embraced all niceties. His excellent qualities, we are
glad to notice, in conclusion, had gained their reward; he was
well-to-do, lived regularly, had a happy family, and envied neither lord
nor peasant.
[Picture: Buckden]
Welwyn, the road to Buckden, and Buckden itself seem quite lonely without
this figure of all the virtues and the graces.
Spelt “Bugden” in other times, the inhabitants still pronounce its name
in this way. There is a well-defined air of aristocracy about this
village, due partly to the ruined towers of the old palace of the Bishops
of Lincoln, and to the sturdy old red-brick walls that enclose the
grounds in which they stand. They are walls with a thickness and lavish
use of material calculated to make the builder of “desirable villa
residences” gasp with dismay at such apparently wanton extravagance. But
the Bishops of Lincoln, who built those walls in the fifteenth century,
had not obtained their land on a building lease; and, moreover, they were
building for their own use, which makes a deal of difference, it must be
conceded.
You cannot help noticing these walls, for they run for some distance
beside the road. Through a gateway is seen a pleasant view of lawns and
the front of a modern mansion. The Bishops have long left Buckden, and
have gone to reside at their palace at Lincoln, Buckden Palace having
been wantonly demolished when the Order in Council, authorising these
Right Reverend Fathers in God to alienate the property, was obtained.
The church adjoins their roofless old gatehouse, and is a fine old place
of worship, with a stone spire of the Northants type.
In this church will be found a singular example of modesty. It is an
epitaph without the name of the person:—
“Sacred to the memory of
AN OFFICER,
who sincerely regarded this
his native village
and caused an asylum to be erected, to protect
Age, and to reward Industry.
Reader, ask not his name.
If thou approve a deed which succours
the helpless, go and emulate it.
Obiit 1834, aet 65.”
The tiny hamlet of Hardwick, dignified with mention on the Ordnance map,
is passed without its existence being noticed, and the road, flat as
though constructed with the aid of a spirit-level, proceeds straight
ahead for the town of Huntingdon, swinging acutely to the left for York.
Beyond, at the cross-roads, stands Brampton Hut, the modern vivid
red-brick successor of the old inn of that name. Brampton village lies
down the cross-road to the right, and is the place where Samuel Pepys, it
is thought, was born in 1632. {117} The registers afford no information,
for they do not begin until twenty-one years later, and the old gossip
himself makes no mention of the fact. His father and mother lived here,
and both lie in the church. Their home, his birthplace, stands even now,
but so altered that it is practically without much interest. It was in
its garden, in October, 1666, that Samuel caused his £1,300 to be buried
when the Dutch descent upon London was feared. A timorous soul, poor
Samuel! sending his father and his wife down from London to Brampton with
the gold, and with £300 in a girdle round where his waist should have
been, but was not, for Samuel was a man of “full habit,” as the elegant
phrase, seeking to disguise the accusation of exceeding fatness, has it.
Great was his anxiety when, the national danger over, he came down to
disinter his hoard. “My father and I with a dark lantern, it being now
night, into the garden with my wife, and there went about our great work
to dig up my gold. But Lord! what a tosse I was for some time in, that
they could not justly tell where it was; but by and by, poking with a
spit, we found it, and then begun with a spudd to lift up the ground.”
But they had not been cautious in their work. “Good God!” says he, “to
see how sillily they hid it, not half a foot under ground, in sight of
passers-by and from the neighbours’ windows.” Then he found the gold all
loose, and the notes decaying with the damp, and all the while, routing
about among the dirt for the scattered pieces, he was afraid lest the
neighbours should see him, and fancy the Pepys family had discovered a
gold mine; so he took up dirt and all, and, carrying it to his brother’s
bedroom, washed it out with the aid of several pails of water and some
besoms, with the result that he was still over a hundred pieces short.
This “made him mad.” He could not go out in the garden with his father,
because the old man was deaf, and, in shouting to him, all the neighbours
would get to know. So he went out with W. Hewer, and by diligent
grubbing in the mould, made the sum nearly tally. The day after, leaving
his father to search for the remainder, we find him setting out for
London, with his belongings; the gold in a basket in the coach, and he
coming to look after it every quarter of an hour.
Something over a mile distant from Brampton cross-roads, and passing over
two little bridges, we come to a third bridge, spanning one of the lazy
rivulets that trickle aimlessly through the flats. It is just an old
red-brick bridge, braced with iron and edged with timber; an
innocent-looking, although dull and lonely spot, with the water trickling
along in its deeply worn bed, and no sound save the occasional splash
made by a frightened water-rat. Yet this is “Matcham’s Bridge,” and the
scene of an infamous murder.
[Picture: Matcham’s Bridge]
Matcham’s Bridge, spanning the little river Wey, obtained its name from
the murder of a drummer-boy here by Gervase (or Jarvis) Matcham, on the
19th of August 1780. The murder was a remarkable one, and is made
additionally memorable by the after-career of the murderer, whose bloody
deed and subsequent confession, six years later, form the subject of the
_Dead Drummer_, one of Barham’s _Ingoldsby Legends_.