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Buckworth
Buckworth maps
Historic maps of Buckworth and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Buckworth maps
Buckworth photos
We have no photos of Buckworth, although we do have photos of these nearby places:
Spaldwick| Ellington| Old Weston| Abbots Ripton| Brampton| Huntingdon| Kimbolton| Buckden| Godmanchester| Offord Cluny
Buckworth area books
Displaying 1 of 10 books about Buckworth and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Buckworth
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Cambridgeshire memories
Small Village
I was born at Alconbury but my grandmother, MaryAnne Draper rentend a cottage on the Haggar Farm. I went to school at the tiny little school house and when I was 11 went to school at Sawtry. I have some really nice memories of Upton and growing up in a small village. I now live in Tucson Az,USA. I haven't been back to Upton in over 35 years I know the village has changed and alot of the people have moved on but it would be nice to hear from someone who remember the old days.
I can remember waiting for the school bus to Sawtry when it was freezing cold, life was so simple then. I am pleased to say life is not so hard now but I do look forward to going back to Upton and to see my family. I would love to hear from anyone who lives there now.
Hales Family
My dad was born in the village in 1927 in a cottage in Sheep Street. The Hales family have lived in the village for a number of generations until the 1960s. The churchyard is a testament to this as there are a number of gravestones with the family name on. I remember visiting the village as a child and walking from the main road where the bus dropped us up the hill to the village sometimes using a footpath across fields. My dad's family had moved to a cottage on The Avenue behind the war memorial, and as a child I can't remember venturing far from this. The other side of the cottage was used by a men's temperance group that didn't frequent the pub! We make regular visits to the village and each time my dad shares another memory of his childhood, maybe about his schooldays at the village school or visits to the pub with his grandad. He was brought up by his grandparents as his... Read more
War Years
My name is Pamela Alston, nee Earley. I lived in Alconbury village from the age of 5 in 1943 till the age of 15 in 1953. I went to the village school and had an exellent education, much better than my college educated children. We lived at the Globe House and my father Walter Earley transported prisoners of war to work, I remember the Italian prisoners made lovely jewellery from plexi glass and all hand painted. I remember the convoys on the Great North Road, Mr Thompson's bakery, Last's shop, the post office and Constable Everett. I have loads of good memories, and would love to share them with other Alconburians.
Pam Alston.
Bell Lane
My memories are of living at Bell Lane, Alconbury with my parents and granny. My parents, Ivy and Charlie Gillings, went to school there, and I so want some photos of Bell Lane as it was in those days.
From 1940, But Historically Long Before.
Along with my mother Ruby, I was evacuated to Alconbury on my birthday, 23 September 1940. Unknown to me, my paternal grandparents had already moved there and were in residence in Chapel Street. My Mum and I rented Granny Baxter’s cottage off Bell Lane, where we lived until moving to Corner Farm, Buckworth, in 1942. Philip Birch ran the Post Office in his shop at the bottom of Bell Lane.
Returning to Chapel Street, Alconbury in 1946, my Dad opened a small business doing plumbing and general repairs for a while, before concentrating on motor cars and bodywork. We lived behind what was Ganderton’s Butcher Shop, and I was their Saturday delivery boy for some time. One of Dad’s good friends was Walter Earley, father to Pam who has written here. Dad’s Saturday boy was Kelvin Cooper, who has gone on to own his own workshop in Sawtry, and to become a well-known and successful stock car racing driver.
Bell Lane Cottages, as they were known, are long since... Read more
Referring to my Frith 1887 Map of Alconbury
On the 1887 map of Alconbury and its surroundings, there is a reference to the area between Alconbury and Alconbury Weston on Alconbury Brook as being 'Liable to Flooding'. This would have also applied to the areas of the village green and the High Street. On the 'wireless' news you could hear of the Great North Road being flooded at Alconbury. This would have been close to the Bride's Pool, where the brook flowed close to the main road. Today, village residents still complain about the flooding, since houses built long after 1887 have experienced the ingress of water following a heavy rainstorm upstream, or melting snows, causing the brook to overflow its banks. I have photographs that I took during some flooding in the late 1940's or early 1950's showing the extent of floods, and they were pretty extensive, extending up as far as the bottom of Bell Lane, and towards Alconbury Weston from the Maltings. From that downward slope there was simply a sea of water as far as... Read more
Spaldwick Windmill & The Belton Family
The Belton family has a long association with Spaldwick as millers, witnessed by a hill being in the family name, (O.S. map 153), just north of the village.
My mother's sister Violet Bass, from nearby Kimbolton, was married to John Belton.
John, my uncle, inherited the windmill as well as a further windmill at Alconbury and a *water driven mill at Houghton, now owned by the National Trust. The Belton family had a very healthy corn milling business in this area of Huntingdonshire, (sad that it had to be gobbled up by Cambs.). I have documents associated with the business as well as John's 'verge' pocket watch, which formerly belonged to a "Charles" Belton, (father?). I have also, letters written to John's mother when he was in France in WW1 and a number of French embroidered postcards which were popular with soldiers.
Why 1955? Well it was around this time that I visited the mill as a teenager and was saddened to see it in its dilapidated state. The... Read more
