The Inquisitive Traveller

More bits and pieces that I've collected on my recent travels:

The Village Pump

The village water pump used to be the central meeting place in many English villages, the place where news and gossip was shared while the collecting buckets of water for the family's use. This rather elaborate one stands in Watton-at-Stone in Hertfordshire and dates from the nineteenth century. It's rather grander than most with its own little shelter. The ornate pump is said to have started life as the barrel of a cannon, so has completed the transformation from killer to saviour.

For The Good Of The Community

The shop and Post Office in the village of Houghton proudly announces that it is "Community owned". In these days when everything has to make a profit many villages are losing many of their amenities. Although it's OK for those who can jump in their cars and shop in the nearest town, many people, especially the elderly, rely on local services. In another village the church has taken on running the Post Office and a tea-room. In the next village to mine the villagers have worked together to keep their local pub open.

The Day Who Played Many A Game

The grave of George Game Day is a rather grand affair standing in the churchyard in St Ives. Back in the days when only landowners could vote in parliamentary elections Mr Day hit on an ingenious scheme. He bought a small farm and then sold it off as 35 separate pieces of land, thereby creating 35 new landowners who would join with him in voting for the Whig candidate. Such shenanigans landed him in court but the scandal did not impede his political career and he became one of the most influential men in the town.

A Footpath Runs Through It

Visitors to these shores are often surprised at the number of footpaths and rights of way which are available to the walker. Although rules about diverting paths have been relaxed a bit lately it is still very difficult to legally prevent people from going where they've been going "since time immemorial". In the case of the building above, they got permission to build over the path but had to leave a convenient passage to allow walkers to go through.

The Village Blacksmith 

Just outside Houghton Church  is the grave of the village blacksmith, Thomas Garner, inscribed with a suitable rhyme:

My sledge and hammers be declined

My bellows too have lost their wind

My fires extinct, my forge decay'd,

My vice is in the dust all laid.

My coal is spent, my iron gone,

My nails are drove, my work is done.

My fire dried corpse here lies at rest,

My soul smoke-like soars to be blest

Take care.