The officers in charge of these prisoners were often brutal, but that there were some who sympathised with their sorrows is evident from the tablet still to be seen in Yaxley Church, a mile distant, which tells of the gratitude of the prisoners for the kindness shown them by Captain John Draper, R.N., who died after being in charge of the prison for only eighteen months.
Norman Cross Prison, or “Yaxley Barracks”—Norman Cross being in the parish of Yaxley—built in 1796; was demolished in 1816, and no vestige of it is left.
And so all recollection of these things might in time have faded away had it not been for the monument erected by the wayside in the fateful year 1914. Let us pause to consider that moment. Events were hurrying towards the beginning of the Great War of 1914–18, and the nation in general was wholly ignorant of what was coming. Stupidly ignorant, for there were many omens. It was at this moment, afterwards seen to be so full of tragedy, that the memorial pillar on, or near, the site of Yaxley Barracks, to the memory of those French prisoners of war, was unveiled, July 28th, 1914, by Lord Weardale. A gilded bronze French Imperial eagle stoops on the crest of a handsome pillar, and on the plinth is a tablet stating that this is a memorial to 1770 French prisoners who died in captivity.
These incidents, “picked from the wormholes of long vanished days,” give romance to the otherwise featureless road onwards to Kate’s Cabin and Water Newton. The “Kate’s Cabin” inn is mentioned by every road-book of coaching-times, but no one ever condescended to explain the origin of this curious sign, and the inn itself, once standing in the receipt of custom at the cross-roads, three miles and a half from Norman Cross, is now a pretty cottage.
“VOVS KE PAR
ISSI PASSEZ
POVR LE ALME
TOMAS PVR
DEN PRIEZ.”
Read aloud, we perceive this to be intended for rhyme.
No one prays for the soul of Thomas Purden nowadays, for these two very excellent and individually sufficient reasons—that prayers for the dead are not customary in the Church of England, and that, since the road has been diverted, there are no passers-by.
This brings us to the reason why Thomas Purden should have expected wayfarers to intercede for his soul. That he expected them to do this out of gratitude seems obvious; but it is not at first evident for what they should be so grateful. We are, however, to bear in mind that a road passed down beside this church tower in those days, where no road—only a meadow—exists to-day. The meadow slopes steeply to the river, and doubtless a ford, a ferry, or some primitive bridge was established here by Thomas Purden long before even a wooden bridge existed at Wansford. In providing some safe method by which travellers might pass this river, even now subject to dangerous floods, Purden would have been a benefactor in the eyes alike of men and of Holy Church, and fully entitled to the prayers and intercessions of all.