Fragments of Two Centuries Part 14

ROYSTON IN 1800-25.--ITS SURROUNDINGS, ITS STREETS, AND ITS PEOPLE.

The prospect of Royston from its surroundings was, at the beginning of the century, singularly bleak and uninviting in winter time. Of the many plantations which now beautify the vicinity of the town, and afford such pleasant walks, not one tree had got on end. The London Road, from the top of the town to the sylvan spot now known as the "Seven Rides," had not a single tree near it, and only one solitary bush standing out on the hill-top against the sky-line, on the summit of what was then a very steep hill through which the cutting has since been made. The hills on the Newmarket Road, which have also since been cut through, were equally bare and monotonous in colour, at least during most of the year; and the Heath was then dest.i.tute of those graceful patches of charming spring and autumn natural tints which the plantations of to-day give to the neighbourhood of the Church Hill, &c.

Some of the trees along by the Ivy Farm on the Haldock Road had been planted, but that was about all there was towards that pretty setting of the old town in tree and foliage, which is such a pleasing view, especially when seen from the hills around the town. The plantations near the Heath were carried out by the late Mr. Henry Thurnall, by direction of the trustees of Mr. George Fordham, and those about the Green Walk by the Lord Dacre of those days, who also erected, at the summit of the hill, a kind of summer house which was so badly appreciated by the public that it was taken away. I trust we may at least write respecting these advantages--other days, other manners.

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The same open and exposed character, which left Royston in a semicircle of bare hills, was also common to the surrounding parishes where the land still lay in strips, with green baulks between, so that a 300 acre farm was not unfrequently in four or five hundred strips, scattered about the parish, one in this furlong or "shot," and one in that. The country surrounding Royston on the line of Icknield Street, was not only unenclosed, but much of it was heath country--extending from Whittlesford to Royston on the one hand, and from Royston to Odsey on the other, and it is a pleasure to add that this fine stretch of open country presented in the spring a perfect picture of golden yellow gorse blossom!

The four entrances to the town by the four ancient roads were also very different seventy years ago from their present appearance, with regard to habitations. On the London Road on the east side was the Rabbit Warren, and not a single house from the present Vicarage site to Gatward's Pond, excepting the old Workhouse where G.o.dfrey Terrace now is, and the Old Pest House just beyond Mr. Whitehead's stone works.

For the rest, the Rabbit Warren sloped away into the valley (now gardens), where school-boys met and fought out their differences! Here was the old claypit, a curious geological feature embosomed in the chalk. Paupers and rabbits were the only inhabitants of this end of the town on the cast, and on the west the first house was, as now, the old "Horse Shoes," on the bank. The last house on the Melbourn Road was the turnpike near the Inst.i.tute. In Baldock Street there was nothing on the south side beyond Messrs. Phillips' brewery, and on the north side nothing beyond the Fleet, then a private road-way to the lime kiln and clunch pit, in the occupation of Mr. S. Eversden, now forming the picturesque dell in the grounds of the Rookery (Mr. Henry Fordham's). Royston, in Cambridgeshire, consisted only of a few houses beyond the old Palace, the house now occupied by Dr. Archer, then a boarding school kept by Mrs. Raynes, being the last house in Royston, Cambs. Now almost a town has sprung up beyond this spot, upon what were then open fields. This house occupies part of an old burial site around which centres a little mystery and a solid part of the history of our old town. It must suffice here to say that what was in the early years of the century a school for teaching the young idea how to shout, has twice been the residence of a doctor, while beneath its foundations have rested for centuries the ancestors of those who were being tutored and physicked, and that a few years ago upon the removal of earth for enlarging Dr. Archer's house, so many human remains were disturbed that on the wall of the old cellar (then being enlarged) was a skull of some poor Yorick of the Middle Ages in which a live bat had taken up its abode!

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A few old sites and buildings may be here mentioned. The County Court occupies what was then a tinker's shop and a farm-yard behind; the pedal stone of the ancient Cross, now in the Inst.i.tute garden, was then at the back entrance to the Bull Yard, near Mr. Innes' shop, having been removed from the Cross a few years before; the market place could only be approached from the High Street, through the inn yards. Of the ponds of Royston, Gatward's Pond, on the Barkway Road, was open and unenclosed. It was not a very savoury bath, but in its turbid depths so many boys used to disport themselves, that it was commonly remarked in the district that Royston had no water, and yet more boys learned to swim here than anywhere else in the district.

The other more notable ponds were those in Kneesworth Street, the first where the piece of waste ground now is at the boundary between Kneesworth and Royston (Cambs.) parishes, and one lower down the same street. The pond which gave the most rural aspect to the north end of the town was that in front of the White Bear public-house, at the top of the present Gas Road; a genuine country pond, with a rail around by that part of it next the road--which was then narrowed to half its present width--and on the north side a long baulk or mound about four feet high upon which was a group of trees.

The overturning of one of Lord Hardwicke's carts, laden with boxes, into the pond, and sundry immersions of customers from the White Bear in the night time, led to its abolition by the Turnpike Trust about 1830.

The Old Vicarage House stood in the Churchyard, with a public footpath through the churchyard in front of it, and the present Church Lane at the back. The old malting in Kneesworth Street, now Mr. Francis John Fordham's coach-house and stables, played an interesting part in the town life--a place of worship, an academy, and a reformer's trysting place. At one end of the old barn-like structure the "Ranters" or Methodists met for worship, at the other, later on, the late Mr. John Baker conducted a school, and in this room, reached by a ladder, the first Free Trade meeting was held in Royston, when, it goes without saying, the Manchester men, coming within the smell of malt and near a market which had flourished like a green bay tree under the _aegis_ of Protection, had a warm reception in this, the only _room_ they could get in the town!

But what would a town be without its Town Hall as the heart and centre of its official life? Such a building Royston has for many years possessed in the modest red-brick building known as the Parish Room, on the Fish Hill. In this case, however, it was not the original purpose for which the building was erected. It was built about the year 1716 for the purposes of a school house, and by the contributions {113} of gentlemen of the town and country round. It thus became something of a public inst.i.tution from the first, but when apparently its uses as a school-house became less beneficial to the town it was applied to general parochial purposes. The traditions of the pedagogue were, however, not easily got rid of, for even when the parish had evidently got into the regular custom of using it for meetings, there was at least one person they had to reckon with who stood out stoutly for whatever privilege the original foundation gave him for continuing to teach the young idea how to shoot! The result was that a conflict of a semi-legal character arose over the use of the building as to the right of Henry Watson who was then using the room under a rather uncertain tenure, but in harmony with the traditions of the place.

The outcome was that the Vestry triumphed, and the room was put in a proper state of repair for the use of the parish.

The streets of the town were the natural drains feeding the stagnant ponds. Not only was the Church Lane an open drain, but the piece of Back Street, between the Cross and Kneesworth Street, was an open ditch, across which was a plank bridge into the back way of the "Coach and Horses." The High Street had no paving, but only a rough raised path running along next the shops. The condition of the street was such that ladies generally wore pattens and clogs, which were home-made at Mr. Goode's, and it was no uncommon thing to see gentlemen wearing them also; indeed, this was a much more common sight than to see a gentleman wearing a moustache, which was viewed as a curiosity then.

The only person in the town and district then keeping a carriage was Squire Wortham, in Melbourn Street.

But very little was done in the way of cleaning the streets and the drainage was simple, natural, and unaided by art. A few years later, however, about 1824, a beginning was made towards an improved state of things, and a man was employed to sweep the streets periodically with a besom at the munificent salary of 36s. 4d. a year! Over the seventy years that have intervened, this pioneer of our town improvements stands out clear and notable with his four-penny besom and basket.

That he did good honest work with his birch there is credible testimony in the parochial balance sheets of the period, wherein appear frequent entries, at first of 4d. and then of 5d. each, for new besoms, as the value of that commodity advanced with the greater enlightenment and more sweeping reforms of the times!

To the same period, the latter part of it, we owe the beginning of that general system of the "petrified kidney" style of pavement which still lingers in places. Twopence-half-penny a bushel the material cost our forefathers! but what, in trials of patience and of temper, have they not cost the unlucky Roystonians who were destined to walk upon {114} them for so long and with so little hope of change? It was a cheap way of serving posterity, but a.s.suredly not a kind one, for the evil of it is that they never wear out! Farmers and others paid their highway rates in kind, that is by carting materials, &c., and of this "composition" according to scale, there were seven farmers in Royston availing themselves. The first piece of stone paving in our streets was commenced near the Cross in 1836.

During the earlier years of the century there were no street lamps in our town of any kind, but people were commonly met in the streets on their way to Church, Chapel, or to the shops, carrying a lantern and, in dirty weather, "clicketting along in pattens."

The shop windows were lighted with candles, if at all, and candles were placed upon the counters, with, of course, the necessity of a pause in the casting up of an account or serving a customer, to snuff the candle! Later, when gas came--in July of the year 1836--there was here, as elsewhere, some prejudice against its adoption, and some observations on the practical advantages of the employment of coal gas, were addressed to the inhabitants of Royston by Mr. W. H. Nash, secretary to the committee of the Royston Gas Company, and printed and circulated. The price charged for gas was at first 12s. 6d. per 1,000 feet, and consequently it was an uphill work to supersede the tallow candle and snuffers of our grandfathers!

Water was hawked round the streets at so much a pailful, though a few wells were open to use on payment, such as that at the White Lion, and especially the Hoops. The subject of allotments for the labourer is no new thing, for across the s.p.a.ce of sixty years come the stentorian tones of the Royston Bellman to which we may listen with advantage and perhaps derive a lesson from what followed upon his message--

"Oyez, Oyez, Notice is hereby given that the industrious poor, both single and married of this parish, who are desirous of hiring a small piece of land, are desired to apply at the Vestry Room on the Fish Hill, to have their names entered to ascertain what each person would like to have."

The result was that Mr. Valentine Beldam let 11 acres of land near Larman's, or Lawman's Way, at the upper end of the town, to the Overseers at 30s. an acre, and it was re-let in roods, half-acres and acres at the same price to labourers.

For a time the scheme answered well and the state of each man's allotment was reported upon to the Vestry; but in 1835 it was found that "in consequence of the land hired of Mr. Valentine Beldam, and others, being so badly farmed and the rents generally so far in arrear, that the said land should be given up to the proprietors."

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As to the trade of country towns, there were many more actual makers of things than now, such as tailors and bootmakers, patten makers, maltsters; and there were several academies, as the schools for the middle cla.s.s were called. Thus in Royston there were the following:--Rev. Samuel Cautherley, and also Mr. Yorke, Melbourn Street; John Kent, (gentlemen's boarding,) Back Street (now Mr. A.

Gosling's); Mrs. Towne, wife of the minister at the New Meeting in Kneesworth Street (1804); Mrs. G. H. Raines, Ladies' School, Melbourn Street (and also at one time in the house now Dr. Archer's in Kneesworth Street); Henry Watson, Day School, Fish Hill, (under the Vestry Room).

The old Post Office at the time of the Battle of Waterloo, was at a cottage on the London Road, opposite White Hall, and was kept by Mrs.

Daintry and her daughter. The number of letters was very small and one delivery and collecting of the money for them about ten o'clock in the morning was sufficient.

Though mail bags were despatched at different hours of the night according to the arrival of the mail coaches, it was thought unnecessary for anyone to be on night duty, but the postmaster, or postmistress, would appear at an upper window in a night cap and let down the mail bag by a stout cord with a hook at the end, from which the coachman would take it. The old rope and hook with which this used to be performed through a small window at the old Buntingford Post Office (late Mr. Charles Nicholls) are, I believe, still in existence.

Just before the introduction of the Penny Post we find the Post Office in Melbourn Street (master, Mr. Thomas Daintry) closed at ten o'clock, but letters were received "between that hour and eleven on payment of sixpence each"! At that time, however, there was an arrangement known as the "Royston Penny Post," comprising the parishes of Barrington, Fowlmere, Foxton, Melbourn, Meldreth, Shepreth and Thriplow.

The posting and delivery of a letter was a different affair then from now. Envelopes and postage stamps had not been invented. The postage was paid by the person receiving the letter, and it did not depend upon the weight of the letter at all, but upon how many sheets it contained.

Two very small sheets or small pieces of paper would count as two letters and double postage, but an immense sheet of foolscap, or even folio size, containing many times the writing of the other two, would only count as one, and letters were as a consequence often curious looking doc.u.ments.

As to the cost of postage of a letter the following were the rates prevailing between Royston and the places named:--Cambridge 4d., London 7d., Norwich 8d., Huntingdon 6d., Newport 10d., Brandon 8d., Cheshunt 7d., Bedford 6d., Buntingford 4d. In the few cases {116} where persons had friends in America, a letter to them cost 2s. 2d.; to Gibraltar the cost was 2s. 10d., Malta and the Mediterranean 3s. 2d., postage in these cases being prepaid. The charge was based upon a scale according to the distance, commencing with 4d. not exceeding 15 miles. The transmission of money was "by wagon," and instead of a creditor asking for a remittance by return of post it was "by return of wagon."

Of the old Inns in Royston it may be of interest to add that the Red Lion ball-room continued to be a centre of fashionable gatherings until, with the decay of the posting and coaching business for which the Red Lion had been chiefly famous, the Bull Hotel (the same owners) became the leading house. The Red Lion was afterwards given up, the ball-room, with its a.s.sociations going back to the Old Royston Club, was removed and re-erected as the present ball-room or billiard-room of the Bull Hotel, while its rampant lion which had presented a bold face to the High Street for more than a century, was removed to a higher position on the top of Reed Hill, where it now does duty, and has given a sign to the house standing there. Here, for the sake of auld lang syne, it gets a bright new coat of paint now and again, and worthily holds its own as the last relic of a famous old inn, around which so much of the public life of the town and neighbourhood had revolved for some generations!

The Bull was originally the "Black Bull," and the Boar's Head the "Blue Boar's Head." The Bull had stabling for a hundred horses. The Green Man was a sign that explained itself when, at the beginning of the century and for some years afterwards, upon an angular sign on the front of the inn, with faces two ways, was the painted figure of a man in the green habit of the archer and forester. The "Jolly Butchers" or "Ye three Butchers," on the Market Hill, and the "Catherine Wheel," in Melbourn Street, have ceased to be inns.

Such was the outward sh.e.l.l of Royston in the hectic flush of the "good old times." The taking of the census recently suggests a word with regard to the population of the town and how it was ascertained in times gone by. At least, at one decade (1821) the Overseers were paid a penny per head for taking the population. In 1801 the population was only 1484, and in 1831 it was 2008. Further particulars of the population of the town and of the villages in the neighbourhood will be found in an appendix at the end of this book.

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CHAPTER XII.

PUBLIC WORSHIP AND EDUCATION--MORALS AND MUSIC.

When the reforming spirit which brooded over the two centuries touched the subject of education, its advocates became enthusiastic! Here is what an old writer said in 1806 about a proposal to establish evening schools for the instruction of farm servants:--

"We should hear the humble countryman talk of the heroes of old, catch the patriotic inspiration from the action of his great forefathers, while wisdom would extend her protecting hand and claim the nation for her own"!

However much we may be inclined to smile at this grandiloquent prophecy of the fruits of an evening school, in the light of present difficulties of instilling four standards into the bulk of the childhood of the nation, it is impossible to move a step among the footprints of the common people of sixty years ago without finding how enormously the progress of education has transformed the face of society, though not quite on the cla.s.sic lines of the old writer just quoted.

Of education for children in the villages there was none at the beginning of the century. Over and over again the answers to the Bishop of Ely's questions in 1791, show that there was no school in the parish, and, as Sunday Schools were not generally established till many years afterwards, it may safely be said that during the first few years of the present century, not one person in ten of the labouring population could read, much less write.

The Sunday School movement, the real beginning of the education of the people, both secular and religious, commenced at a very early date in several parts of Hertfordshire, but in the beginning these schools were very different from what is now understood by that term. So far as Royston is concerned I believe the Nonconformists generally claim that they were the first to start a Sunday School in the town--that the first Sunday School was established in connection with the Old Meeting, now John Street Chapel. If by a Sunday School is meant what it now means--the voluntary service of lay workers in teaching the children, this may be true, but taking the word in its more general sense of teaching children on Sundays, the first step of which I can find any {118} record would be that taken by the Church people. In July, 1808, there occurs this entry in the Royston vestry minute book--

"At this Vestry it is considered that the Churchwardens Do put the Galary in proper Order for the Reception of the Children belonging to a Sunday School."

From the wording of this minute it is evident that the Sunday School in question had just been established, and this is confirmed by what follows in the same book--

"Boys to be admitted at the age of 6 years and continue to 12, girls to be admitted at the age of 6 years and continue to 14."

"The Masters to receive the scholars at 9 o'clock in the morning and to go with them to Church at 11. The scholars are to return to school at 2 and go to Church at 3 and return from Church to school, and _continue there till between five and six o'clock_"!

"The master, H. Watson, jun., to be paid six guineas a year for his trouble."

This Sunday School was established during the inc.u.mbency of the Rev.

Samuel Cautherley, a name still honourably connected with Sunday School work in the town.