WOBURN
There is no doubt possible to even the most hurried wayfarer as to who owns the tiny townlet of Woburn, just outside the park. The great old coaching inn, the “Bedford Arms,” proclaims it, alike in its name and in the heraldic signboard, displaying the arms of the Russells and their motto, Che sara sara—i.e. “What will be, will be.” And, judging from the demeanour of the few people to be seen, the Dukes of Bedford own them too. It is not enough for the Dukes that they reside secluded in the midst of their wide-spreading park. They look with disfavour upon a town at their gates, even though that town be in fact but a village; and in consequence there is no new building in the place. If the prevailing Russell characteristic were not parsimony, there can scarce be any doubt that they would have razed Woburn to the ground; but that would cost something, an excruciating thought to this frugal race. Therefore Woburn remains very much what it was a hundred years ago. Cobblestones of the “petrified kidney” kind pave the road and footpaths, and the shops are of the kind in which Jane Austen might have bought her linen and her groceries. Quaint shop-fronts they are, with windows patterned like the glazed doors of antique bureaus. In short, Woburn is a rare and interesting relic of times past.
Expansion of business is a thing unthinkable here, and some shops, and some of the one-time many inns, have given up in despair. The only new, or comparatively new, things in Woburn are the parish church and the town hall: the last-named built in 1830, and the church in 1868, with alterations in 1890.
It is somewhat difficult to characterise the new church. When you have called it “Early English,” you momentarily think you have the style, but no: there is a florid, alien, meretricious manner in it that refuses classification. The peculiarly chalky white stone of which it is built is not pleasing. At any rate, it was ducally expensive: having cost the eighth Duke £30,000. The chief idea was the greater glorification of future Russells, whose tombs were intended to be placed here; but the constant reminder outside their own park that even Dukes of Bedford must die did not commend itself to others of the clan, and so their historic burial-place at Chenies, in Buckinghamshire, many miles distant, is retained. The angles of the church tower are finished off, against the sky-line, with four devils whose weird aspect, horse-like heads and curled manes impress me more than anything else, unless indeed it be the perfection of the magnificent lawn that slopes steeply to the road.
All the way from sleepy old Woburn to the modern, very much up-to-date, and bustling town of Woburn Sands the road passes through beautiful woodlands, echoing with the voices of pheasants, and rich in the odours of pine and beech and laurel. In midst of this scenery, the half-timbered “Henry the Eighth’s Lodge,” with clipped yew-trees, in shape like so many Stilton cheeses, is very striking. After these solitudes, Woburn Sands comes very much as a surprise, and to some perhaps not altogether a welcome one.
EX-HOGSTYE END
Woburn Sands is an entirely modern name. You will look in vain for it in the pages of Cary or Paterson, for in the old days of the road the place was merely an insignificant hamlet known by the unlovely name of Hogstye End. But things have happened since then. A branch line of the London and North-Western Railway was constructed, crossing the road at this point, and with a station at the roadside. Thus brought into touch with the outer world, the simple souls of Hogstye End arose as one man, and demanded a new name for the place: and so the title of Woburn Sands was invented. To-day, the astonished traveller sees a typical twentieth-century township on the site of Hogstye End: a rosy, red-brick place, growing at the expense of Woburn itself; and making strenuous claims to be a health-resort, by reason of the sandy soil and the wide-spreading fir-woods. The observant traveller will notice a singular testimony to the belief, until recently prevailing, that the days of the road were done, in the arrogant behaviour of the railway company at this point, in actually encroaching upon the main highway with the out-buildings of their station and the obstructing position of the gates of their level-crossing, often closed for ten minutes at a time during shunting operations.
Leaving Woburn Sands, we incidentally leave Bedfordshire and enter Bucks, coming in seven miles, past the unremarkable villages of Wavendon and Broughton, to the town of Newport Pagnell.
XVII
Newport Pagnell is not a port nor is it new, and the Paganels who gave it the second half of its name have been extinct so many centuries that there are not even any monuments of them left in the church. There is indeed nothing feudal in the appearance of the little town, and the very site of the great Norman castle built by Fulke Paganel is obscure.