To plough and to sow,
And to reap and to mow,
And to be a Farmer's Boy!
Ah, me! who would not be jolly with a good market this week and the prospect of higher prices next?—with the guarantee of the State that the farmer should not have less than 70s. a quarter, and the certainty of higher prices if the war lasted! But these farmers in the leather breeches and top boots—these self-satisfied men are already in the fading glory of the "Good Old Times"—always applying those words, in so far as they have any meaning at all, chiefly to the farming and land-owning classes. Before the century is much older we shall see the same class harrassed, embarrassed, and eaten up by a rotten and immoral poor law system, about to be mended, and their prospect of high prices growing less and less, as sliding scales and all artificial props are removed out of the way of things finding their own level—down, down, down towards the present unsupportable level of prices when the consumer has as complete a monopoly of advantages as had the producer in the old days!
But it was not only of the results, but of the place itself also, that the farmer had a pleasant memory. So much attached were its habitués to the old style of an open corn market that when, in later times, the Corn exchange came, many complained that they could not tell a good sample of corn in a building like that, so well as in the open air. Indeed, so wedded were they to the old custom of open market that when the Corn Exchange was erected by the then Lord Dacre, they showed such an obstinate preference for the open market and the convenience of the inns, that they refused for some time to use the new building provided for them! But they got used to it—those that were left to carry on the business of a market, whose traditions, nay, whose history, speaks to us of a former greatness and reputation for trade, in the centuries that are gone, which we can hardly now understand.
CHAPTER XI.
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 destitute 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.
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 Godfrey 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 Institute. 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!