Rides on Railways Part 3

We must not omit to notice the duck trade carried on by the poorer order of people round the town. They hatch the ducks under hens generally in their living rooms, often under their beds, and fatten them up early in spring on garbage, of which horse flesh not unfrequently forms a large part. The ducks taste none the worse if for the last fortnight they are permitted to have plenty of clean water and oats, or barleymeal. Most of the Aylesbury ducks never see water except in a drinking pan. The cheap rate at which the inferior grain can be bought has been a great advantage to these duck feeders.

The many means now open of reaching the best markets of the country will probably change the style and make the fortunes of a new race of Bucks farmers. Those of the present generation who have neither capital nor education can only be made useful by transplantation.

Returning from Aylesbury, and gliding out of the deep cuttings over a fine open country, we approach the Leighton Buzzard station, and see in the distance the lofty octagonal spire of the Leighton Buzzard church.

The town is half a mile from the station, and commands the attention of the church antiquary from its fine church and cross.

The church, says a very competent authority on such matters, "is one of the most s.p.a.cious, lightsome, and well-proportioned perpendicular churches, cruciform, with a handsome stone spire. The roof, stalls, and other wood- work very perfect. The windows, some ironwork, and other details, full of interest."

The cross stands in an open area in the centre of the market place, and is twenty-seven feet high above the bas.e.m.e.nt, which is raised by rows of steps about five feet.

At Leighton Buzzard a branch line of seven miles communicates with DUNSTABLE.

[LEIGHTON BUZZARD: ill6.jpg]

Dunstable is situated in the centre of the Dunstable Chalk Downs, where the celebrated Dunstable larks are caught which are made mention of in one of Miss Edgeworth's pretty stories. The manufactures are whiting and straw hats. Of an ancient priory, founded in 1131, by Henry I., and endowed with the town, and the privileges of jurisdiction extending to life and death, nothing remains but the parish church, of which the interior is richly ornamented. Over the altar-piece is a large painting representing the Lord's Supper, by Sir James Thornhill, the father-in-law of Hogarth. In a charity school founded in 1727, forty boys are clothed, educated, and apprenticed. In twelve almshouses twelve poor widows are lodged, and in six houses near the church, called the Maidens' Lodge, six unmarried gentlewomen live and enjoy an income of 120 pounds per ann. With this brief notice we may retrace our steps.

On leaving Leighton, within half a mile we enter a covered tunnel, and we strongly recommend some artist fond of "strong effects" in landscape to obtain a seat in a coupe forming the last carriage in an express train, if such are ever put on now, sitting with your back to the engine, with windows before and on each side, you are whirled out of sight into twilight and darkness, and again into twilight and light, in a manner most impressive, yet which cannot be described. Perhaps the effect is even greater in a slow than in an express train. But as this tunnel is curved the transition would be more complete.

At Bletchley the church (embowered in a grove of yews, planted perhaps when Henry VIII. issued his decrees for planting the archer's tree) contains an altar tomb of Lord Grey of Wilton, A.D. 1412. The station has now become important as from it diverge the Bedford line to the east, and the lines to Banbury and Oxford to the west.

A branch connects Bletchley with Bedford 16.25 miles in length, with the following stations:-

FENNY STRATFORD. LIDLINGTON.

WOBURN SANDS. AMPTHILL.

RIDGMOUNT. BEDFORD.

WOBURN AND BEDFORD.

Woburn is one of those dull places, neat, clean, and pretentious in public buildings, which are forced under the hot-house influence of a great political family.

We pa.s.s it to visit Woburn Abbey, the residence of the Russell family, with its extensive and magnificent gardens, its model farms, its picture gallery, and other accessories of a great n.o.bleman's country seat.

It was at Woburn that Francis, Duke of Bedford, held his sheep-shearing feasts, and by patronising, in conjunction with c.o.ke of Norfolk and Mr.

Western, improvements and improvers in agriculture and stock-breeding, did so much to promote agricultural improvement in this county, and to create that large cla.s.s of wealthy educated agriculturists, which confers such great benefits on this country.

Now that every country gentleman has at least one neighbour who is, or professes to be, an agricultural improver, it is difficult to give an adequate idea of the benefit we have derived from the agricultural enthusiasm of the n.o.blemen and gentlemen who first made the science of cultivating breeding fashionable, we must be excused the word, among a cla.s.s which had previously been exclusively devoted to field sports or to town life. They founded that finest of all modern characters--the English country gentleman, educated, yet hearty, a scholar and a sportsman, a good farmer, and an intelligent, considerate landlord; happy to teach, and ready to learn, anything connected with a pursuit which he follows with the enthusiasm of a student and the skill of a practical man.

The other stations have nothing about them to induce a curious traveller to pause. Not so can we say of BEDFORD.

Bedford has been pauperised by the number and wealth of its charities. A mechanic, or small tradesman, can send his child if it be sick to a free hospital; when older to a free school, where even books are provided; when the boy is apprenticed a fee may be obtained from a charity; at half the time of apprenticeship, a second fee; on the expiration of the term, a third; on going to service, a fourth; if he marries he expects to obtain from a charity fund "a portion" with his wife, also educated at a charity; and if he has not sufficient industry or prudence to lay by for old age, and those are virtues which he is not likely to practise, he looks forward with confidence to being boarded and lodged at one of Bedford's fifty-nine almshouses.

The chief source of the charities of Bedford is derived from an estate of thirteen acres of land in the parish of St. Andrew, Holborn, London, bequeathed by Sir William Harpur, an alderman of that city, in the reign of Edward VI., for founding a free school for instructing the children of the town in grammar, and good manners. This land, now covered with valuable houses, produces some 16,000 pounds per annum.

On this fund there are supported, 1st. a Grammar School, with eighty boys on the foundation, and as many private boarders; a Commercial School, containing 100 to 150 boys; a National School, of 350 boys, where on the half holidays 170 girls are received, a regular Girls' School and an Infant School.

Beside which, the girls in the hospital for poor children, another branch of the charity, are taught household duties, needlework, reading and writing. In these schools the children of all resident parishioners of Bedford's five parishes are ent.i.tled to receive gratuitous instruction. In the National School twenty-five boys are clothed from a fund left by Alderman Newton, of Leicester.

The Warden and Fellows of New College, Oxford, are visitors, and appoint the master and second master of the Grammar School. There are four masters, viz., the head, with two a.s.sistant masters; a mathematical master, and a writing master. The scholars enjoy the advantage of eight exhibitions, of 80 pounds per annum each, six of which must be bestowed on town boys, the remaining two may go to boarders.

The cheap and good education attainable as a matter of right in this borough, have rendered it a favourite resort of half-pay officers and unbeneficed clergymen, blessed with large families.

The church of St. Paul is large, with a nave and a south aisle, divided by early English piers and arches. A stone pulpit, ornamented with gilt tracery, on a blue ground, has been removed in favour of an oak one, with the chancel. The church of St. Peter has an old Norman door, a fine antique front, and some curious stained gla.s.s in the windows.

John Bunyan, author of the "Pilgrim's Progress," was co-pastor in a Baptist Meeting House, in Mill-lane, from 1671 until his death in 1688. The chair in which he used to sit is still preserved in the vestry as a relic.

A few miles from Bletchley, is a forgotten, but once celebrated spot, Denbigh Hall, over which the traveller whirls without notice, yet worthy of remembrance, because it affords a name and date for tracing the march of railway enterprise.

In 1838, a gap in the intended railway from London to Birmingham extended from an obscure public-house, called Denbigh Hall, to Rugby. At either point travellers had to exchange the rail for the coach or chaise.

On June 28, 1838, when Queen Victoria was crowned, for days before the coronation, the coaches for the intermediate s.p.a.ce were crammed; the chaises and post horses were monopolised, and at length, to cover thirty odd miles, every gig, standing waggon, cart, and donkey cart that could be obtained in the district, was engaged, and yet many were disappointed of their journey to London.

On this London and Birmingham line, in addition to, and without disturbing the ordinary traffic, 2,000 souls have been conveyed in one train, at the rate of thirty miles an hour.

Truly Queen Victoria can set the railway conquests of her reign against the glories of the war victories of Queen Anne and her grandfather, King George.

[DENBIGH HALL BRIDGE: ill7.jpg]

THE BUCKS RAILWAY.

A recent extension from Bletchley traverses Buckinghamshire, and by a fork which commences at Winslow, pa.s.ses through Buckingham and Brackley to Banbury by one line, and by Bicester to Oxford by the other. We need not pause at Brackley or Winslow. Buckingham is notable chiefly as being on the road to Princely Palatial Stowe, the seat of the Buckingham family, now shorn of its internal glories in pictures, sculptures, carvings, tapestry, books, and ma.n.u.scripts. Its grounds and gardens, executed on a great scale in the French style, only remain to delight the traveller; these would require, and have been often described in, ill.u.s.trated volumes. Here we shall not dwell upon the melancholy scene of grandeur, power, and wealth frittered away in ign.o.ble follies.

BANBURY.

Banbury is more celebrated than worth seeing. Commercial travellers consider it one of the best towns in England, as it is a sort of metropolis to a great number of thriving villages. Banbury cakes are known wherever English children are bred, and to them, where not educated in too sensible a manner, the Homeric ballad of--

"Ride a c.o.c.k horse To Banbury Cross,"

is sung. Unfortunately, the Puritans, in the time of Edward VI., pulled this famous cross down.

They were in great force there; for as Drunken Barnaby, in his tour, tells us:--

"There I found a Puritan one, Hanging of his cat on Monday For killing of a rat on Sunday."

At Banbury was fought, after the English fashion, one of the great fights that preceded the carrying of the Reform Bill. Previous to that change, sixteen electors had the privilege of sending a member to Parliament.

During the Reform excitement six of these privileged gentlemen seceded from their usual compact, and determined to set up on their own account. For want of a better man, they pitched upon Mr. Easthope, of the Morning Chronicle, since that period, much to his own astonishment no doubt, pitchforked into a baronetcy. The old original M.P. was Colonel Hutchinson, the companion of Sir Robert Wilson in carrying off Lavalette. On entering the town, ten thousand Reformers set up such a howling, that Colonel Hutchinson, thinking his last hour at hand, drew a dagger. Upon which more groans and shrieks followed, with such threats as made it prudent for the friends of the Colonel to compel him to retreat. Under these circ.u.mstances, the streets of the town were crammed full with an excited mob; the poll was opened; the six, amid tremendous plaudits, voted for Easthope, and Reform; the ten very discreetly staid at home, and thus, by six votes, a baronetcy was secured to the unopposed candidate.