VILLAGER Issue 90 - May 2016 and Town Life LOCAL NEWS • LOCAL PEOPLE • LOCAL SERVICES • LOCAL CHARITIES • LOCAL PRODUCTS
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The VILLAGER Issue 90 - May 2016 and Town Life LOCAL NEWS • LOCAL PEOPLE • LOCAL SERVICES • LOCAL CHARITIES • LOCAL PRODUCTS Inside this issue Win tickets to The Garden Theatre May Day Win £25 in our Prize Crossword Bringing Local Business to Local People in Langford, Henlow, Shefford, Stanford, Hinxworth, Ickleford, Caldecote, Radwell, Fairfield Park, Shillington, Pirton, Upper and Lower Stondon, Gravenhurst, Holwell, Meppershall, Baldock, Stotfold, Arlesey, Hitchin & Letchworth Your FREEcopy 2 Please mention The Villager and Town Life when responding to adverts e VILLAGER Issue 90 - May 2016 and Town Life LOCAL NEWS • LOCAL PEOPLE • LOCAL SERVICES • LOCAL CHARITIES • LOCAL PRODUCTS Inside this issue Win tickets to The Garden Theatre May Day Win £25 in our Prize Crossword Bringing Local Business to Local People in Langford, Henlow, Shefford, Stanford, Hinxworth, Ickleford, Caldecote, Radwell, Fairfield Park, Shillington, Pirton, Upper and Lower Stondon, Gravenhurst, Holwell, Meppershall, Baldock, Stotfold, Arlesey, Hitchin & Letchworth Your Contents FREEcopy Employment Matters ..............................................................39 Gallery 1066 ............................................................................40 Gallery 1066 40 The Grass Can Be Greener ........................................................42 30 Days Wild............................................................................45 John Bunyan River Cruises .......................................................48 R.A.T.S. ....................................................................................52 Animal Stories .........................................................................55 Geneva Motor Show 2016 .......................................................59 Puzzle Page .............................................................................60 What’s On ................................................................................62 Raspberry Pavlova Roulade .....................................................64 The Old Villager Lock-Up ...........................................................4 Macmillian Cancer Support .....................................................71 The Offside Rule ........................................................................8 Prize Crossword .......................................................................74 National Walk to School Week .................................................10 Book Review ...........................................................................78 Win Tickets to the Garden Theatre - Knebworth House ............12 In a Nutshell ............................................................................16 John Bunyan River Cruises Cannes Film Festival ................................................................19 Fun Quiz ..................................................................................21 48 Wordsearch .............................................................................24 Do you think you know about Parkinson’s Disease? .................27 May Day ..................................................................................29 Beer at Home ..........................................................................30 The Samaritans .......................................................................33 Beds YFC Country Show and Rally ...........................................34 Your Rights as an Employee ....................................................36 9,500 copies delivered free of charge in the following areas: Henlow, Langford, Astwick, Edworth, Hinxworth, Caldecote, Newnham, Radwell, Bygrave, Shillington, Holwell, Pirton, Upper and Lower Stondon, Shefford, Ashwell End and Stanford (Further bulk drops are made to local shops and busineses in Arlesey, Upper and Lower Stondon, Shefford, Baldock, Letchworth, Hitchin and Stotfold) Editorial - Catherine Rose, Tom Hancock, Susan Brookes-Morris, Publishers Debbie Singh-Bhatti, Ted Bruning, Carol H Scott, Pippa Greenwood, Villager Publications Ltd RSPB, Iain Betson, Nick Coffer and Willow Coby 24 Market Square, Potton, Bedfordshire SG19 2NP Advertising Sales/Local Editorial Tel: 01767 261122 Nigel Frost - 01767 261122 [email protected] [email protected] www.villagermag.com Photography Nigel Spooner and Darren Harbar Photography Disclaimer - All adverts and editorial are printed in good faith, however, Villager Publications Ltd can not take any responsibility for the Design and Artwork content of the adverts, the services provided by the advertisers or any Design 9 Tel 07762 969460 statements given in the editorial. No part of this publication may be reproduced or stored without the express permission of the publisher. To advertise in The Villager and Townlife please call 01767 261122 History By Catherine Rose The Old Village Lock-Up It is still possible to see the unique single-storey historian Mr A.W. Watkin’s recollections: gaols in villages across England that were once “Many years ago there was an old gravel pit on used to hold local miscreants and drunks for a the site of where Victoria Court now stands. In short time, usually overnight. Typified by their one corner were the remains of a building known small, often round or polygonal structure with as The Cage. My father told me that this was a a single door and a narrow slit or grille to let in building once used as a lock-up where drunks light, the majority of these buildings also had a and lawbreakers were temporarily housed. The pointed or domed roof. The latter is believed to building was earthed over on top and had a heavy have inspired the shape of the original policeman’s barrelled door.” helmet. When the County Police Act was introduced The village lock-up was used mainly in the 18th in 1839 that required every town to have its and first half of the 19th centuries to enable rural own police station with a paid police force, the communities to have their own law enforcement. buildings gradually started to become redundant It was useful for detaining poachers, drunks and as the act required that local police stations be petty criminals before they were brought in front built with their own secure purpose-built cells of the local town magistrate. They were also used making the village lock-up less necessary. to house straying animals which were released on During the Second World War, some lock-ups payment of a fine by the owner. Many well-known were used by the Home Guard as sentry posts or authors of this period have referred to the use of storage for arms but many more were demolished. lock-ups in their novels including Charles Dickens Of those that are left today, a number have been and Charles Kingsley. restored and are now listed buildings while some There was a wonderful array of nicknames for have been converted into private homes. these quirky buildings that either stood alone or In Bedfordshire, there are still lock-ups at Barton le were attached to other buildings. They included Clay, Clophill, Harrold and Silsoe. Others, such as round house, jug, bone house, watch tower, the one in Northill near The Crown public house, kitty, lobby, bridewell and the cage, that latter only partially remain. of which was a nickname that was used in both Built of red brick with a slate roof, the lock-up at Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire. Clophill adjoins the ‘village cage’ to the south of Small towns had their own lock-ups too. A report the green and measures what was probably a fairly in The Biggleswade Chronicle refers to local typical floor span of 22 square feet. 4 Please mention The Villager and Town Life when responding to adverts To advertise in The Villager and Townlife please call 01767 261122 5 In 1936, J. Steele Elliot, writing for the Bedfordshire untypically, was used well into the 20th century by Historic Record Society, described an incident from which time it had been formally handed over to the 1814 Quarter Sessions records where a ‘breach the parish council. of the Peace in the said Parish of Clophill’ took In Hertfordshire, there are lock-ups at Anstey, place. It was reported (perhaps rather comically Ashwell, Barley, Buntingford and Shenley. for us reading it today) that ‘James Odell did, with A small square building with a pyramid-shaped Force and Violence, break open the pound there, roof made of slate, the Ashwell lock-up was built where his ass was impounded for Trespass’. Odell’s in 1800 out of stone obtained from the demolition sentence was ‘10 days in gaol’ and he was fined a of a north-east chapel in the chancel of St Mary’s shilling. Church. The lock-up retains its original studded By the early 20th century, Clophill’s lock-up was plank door in an oak frame, and a barred iron grille being used to store lime and as an advertising above but fell out of use in the early 20th century hoarding. In January 1985, it was grade II listed by after which it was used to keep the village fire cart English Heritage for its ‘socio-historical interest’. in until 1939. The octagonal building in Church Road, Harrold Despite their sturdy construction, it was not is one of the older surviving lock-ups. It was built unknown for people to escape the lock-up. After of ironstone in 1796 and has a pointed doorway. Amos Pammenter was imprisoned in the Ashwell It once had a pole in the centre that was used lock-up, he was fed ale by his friends using a to chain prisoners who were in transit between straw through the grille which clearly gave him Bedford and Luton. the strength to