Wednesday 24 April 2019

A422 at Stagsden, by-passed in 1992



An old section of the A422 at Stagsden, by-passed in 1992, photgraphed whilst I was out cycling on St George's Day, 2019.

You are looking West along Newport Pagnell Road, down what was the right hand side of the road, the central white lines being on the left and the road edge white line being on the right.  

Tuesday 23 April 2019

A507 The West-East route

Ridgmont
Ampthill
Maulden
Clophill
Shefford

The route to the A1 through these small towns and villages became an important West-East route once the M1 was built and Milton Keynes was developed.

Formerly, the route ran as the A418 through Ridgmont as far as Ampthill, before the A418 turned abruptly North towards Bedford.

The A418 designation was applied to the old Bedford and Woburn turnpike route, which passed through Ampthill and Kempstone.  There is a record of a toll gate at Flying Horse Farm near Ridgmont on this turnpike. (Woburn Bedford Turnpike 1777-1872.)

After Ampthill the West-East route ran through Maulden, Clophill and Shefford as the A507, onwards to the A1 at Stofold, then on to Buttingford after passing through Baldock.

The Ampthill-Shefford stretch was never turnpiked as far as I can tell, indicating its lack of importance until relatively recent times.

However, the pre-First World War Bartholomew’s map for tourists and cyclists (pre-tarmac and largely pre-motor car) shows the West-East route to be of first class quality throughout, even before the motor car era, which suggests something of its embryonic importance in the late Victorian and Edwardian eras, possibly because there was no immediate railway rival to the route.

When the M1 was constructed, the A418 was not given a motorway junction. Instead, junction 13 was allocated to the nearby B557 (later A412), which offered a more direct route to Bedford through Marston Mortaine than the old turnpike A418 with its constrictions at Woburn and Ampthill.

Nevertheless, increasing traffic demands were placed upon the West-East route by traffic generated by the M1 and the growing Milton Keynes.

The West-East route in its entirety was re-designeated as the A507 when changes were made in the 1980s to cope with the increase in traffic.

The route was reconfigured to by-pass all the towns along the way, forming a road made up of these by-passes, existing lanes and newly constructed sections.

The Ampthill-Maulden Bypass opened in 1983. I would guess that Clophill was by-passed around the same time.

Ridgmont was by-passed in 2008.

Along with the Ridgmont by-pass work, a new series of complicated roundabouts gave the A507 a connection to the M1 at junction 13.


Ampthill pump and signpost
The Town Pump is located in the centre of Ampthill and lies within the Ampthill Conservation Area.

It is a grade II listed building and a designated Scheduled Monument.

The Pump also serves as a milestone, each of its four faces being identified by the name of the towns to which the four roads of the Market Place lead. Bedford (VII miles; north), Dunstable (XII miles, south), London (XLV miles;east) and Woburn (VII miles, west).

The Pump is constructed of Portland limestone and was erected in 1785 by John Fitzpatrick, the 2nd Earl of Upper Ossory (1745-1818). It is said to have been designed by the architect Sir William Chambers (1722-1796) who had in 1768-72 worked on Ampthill Park House and formed part of a programmed of public-spirited improvements initiated and paid for by the Earl.*

The route through Ampthill from Woburn to Bedford was already a turnpike by the time this pump and milestone was erected. (Bedford and Woburn Turnpike Trust was established in 1777.)
*http://www.ampthilltowncouncil.org.uk/amenities/town-pump
 © John Dunn.











Tuesday 2 April 2019

To Buckingham with Ogilby


There's a stretch of road on the 1675 Ogilby road map route from London to Buckingham that deviates from anything we would think of as a main route today. The stretch I'm writing about runs from Quarrenden, North of Aylesbury, to Buckingham. It tells a story of Romans, drovers and bridges.


Section of John Ogilby's 1675 road map - London to Buckingham

I followed the route by bicycle, starting at point A on the Ogilby and Ordnance Survey map, which is the site of a Gypsy King's gravestone on the old Roman road known as Carter's Lane. Weather-beaten, with markings illegible, the stone marks the death of one Edward Bozwellin 1640, who was executed for horse-stealing. His last wish was to be buried in Carter’s Lane.

(A) The Gypsy King's gravestone

(A) The Gypsy King's gravestone

So why did Ogilby's route pass this way? The surveyors will have left Aylesbury for Quarrenden to pass over the River Tame at the stone bridge built there. They will have asked the locals about the best route to Buckingham who replied with the way they knew best - by the drovers' roads. The drovers sought out bridges and dry high ground wherever possible to get their cattle from Wales to London, via Banbury, Buckingham and Aylesbury. They will have followed established routes where possible too, and where more established than a clearly defined Roman road?



B
The unmetalled section of the Roman road, which continues through fields as a bridleway after leaving the rough tarmac of Carter's Lane. 



 C

There is evidence of the old raised agger of the Roman road even after centuries under the plough of the medieval ridge and furrow field systems.




 D
At ‘Dead Man’s Gate’ there was a huge elm, which blew down in the 1987 gales.  In its youth it had been a hanging tree.


























E
The drovers' road is now a bridleway that picks up again after the short stretch on the metalled road.
F

The drovers would direct their cattle to crossing points at brooks and rivers. That this has been a crossing point for many years is shown by this crumbling old bridge. Now no-one is suggesting that this is an actual bridge used by drovers, it is nowhere old enough. However, it is a well made blue brick construction from early to middle of last century, and it is substantial enough to suggest that it might have replaced earlier constructions at an established bridging point on the old route to Buckingham.

G
A point of interest is where an old railway used to cross the route here. Its hard to believe these days, but this was once the northern extension of the London Metropolitan line, isolated and miles out of its comfort zone. The old railway track is followed for a short distance here by electricity pylons.

H
We enter here the village of East Claydon, down what at one time would have been its main road. Now it is a cul-de-sac that culminates in the bridleway and track to a farm.

I

The road beyond East Claydon, which follows the Ogilby and drovers' route, shows evidence of former importance by its width. Forget the modern narrow strip of tarmac and consider the distance from hedge to hedge. Those responsible for mapping out the field enclosures left a very wide trackway.



A section of Herman Moll's map of Buckinghamshire of 1724 showing the route from Aylesbury to Buckingham passing through East Claydon. Moll had depicted Ogilby's route.